Rusedski crashes out and faces race against time

Greg Rusedski will be short of match practice going into next week's Australian Open having been beaten in straight sets by Joachim Johansson in the first round of the Medibank International in Sydney.

The British No2 crashed out 6-4, 6-3 to third seed Johansson, who last week won the Australian hardcourt title in Adelaide. The Swede will meet Max Mirnyi in the second round after the Belarussian's 6-1, 7-5 win over Spaniard David Ferrer.

Top seed and defending champion Lleyton Hewitt moved a step closer to becoming the first player since fellow Australian John Bromwich in 1940 to win the Sydney event four times.

Hewitt rebounded from his early exit from the hardcourt championship to crush Slovakian Karol Beck 6-1, 6-2. His next opponent will be Frenchman Arnaud Clement.

"That was pretty good. I felt like I moved the ball around well," Hewitt said. "I've done all the hard work leading into the Australian Open, so now it's just about keeping the confidence levels up."

In the women's event, French Open champion Anastasia Myskina suffered a shock second-round defeat to Chinese qualifier Shuai Peng.

Shuai, ranked 80th in the world, raced to a 6-1, 6-3 triumph as second seed Myskina struggled to cope with the hot and windy conditions at the Olympic tennis centre.

Russia's first female grand slam winner committed a whopping 46 unforced errors.

"The conditions were tough but that's no excuse," Myskina said.