(Sports Network) - Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt of Australia downed Czech Jan Hernych during first-round action Thursday at the $4.5 million BNP Paribas Open, the ATP's first Masters event of the year.

Two-time major champion Hewitt snuck past Hernych 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 at the beautiful Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Hewitt titled here back-to-back in 2002 and 2003 and was the runner-up in 2005.

Russian Igor Kunitsyn cruised past American veteran Vincent Spadea 6-3, 6-4, while Frenchman Michael Llodra leveled Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-3 and Marc Gicquel doused Italian Simone Bolelli 7-5, 6-3.

Additional first-round wins came for Swede Jarkko Nieminen, Spaniard Albert Montanes, German Philipp Kohlschreiber, Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili, Steve Darcis of Belgium, Italian Potito Starace, Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador, Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci, Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine, Yen-Hsun Lu of Taipei, and Croatian Ivan Ljubicic

The top seeds at this mandatory ATP event are 2007 Indian Wells champion Rafael Nadal, three-time winner Roger Federer, defending champ Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. Djokovic beat Mardy Fish in last year's final and was the '07 runner-up here to the reigning Australian Open, Wimbledon and French Open titlist Nadal.

The former world No. 1 Federer returns to action this week following a six- week layoff to rest a sore back.

All 32 seeds here received opening-round byes.

The 2009 Indian Wells champion will claim $605,500.



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