Hewitt winning in Washington

Lleyton Hewitt began his hard-court season with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Donald Young at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic.

Hewitt was playing in the ATP World Tour 500 hard-court tennis tournament in Washington, his first in three years, and dropped serve three times but won three of five point break opportunities in each set to edge out the American wildcard.

The 28-year-old won the Washington tournament in 2004 and played in the quarter-final in 2007. Hewitt's last win in the US was at Houston in April.

Young, in just his second ATP World Tour appearance this season, was trying to win for the first time since last year's tournament.

Meanwhile, Mikhail Youzhny made his debut in Washington, defeating Robert Kendrick 7-5, 3-6, 6-1. The Russian dropped his first service game, but made a comeback with his American opponent serving for the first set. Youzhny built on his two break point chances, winning four consecutive games to take the lead. The 27-year-old then finished off Kendrick in the third set, limiting him to nine points in total.

Youzhny, whose best world ranking was eighth in early 2008, is searching for the form that catapulted him into the semi-final of the US Open, and now faces Robin Soderling next. The World No. 65 beat the Swede in their only previous meeting a couple of years ago in Dubai.

The Russian player just snapped a seven-match losing streak last week, a run that started with a quarter-final exit to James Blake at the Queen's Club in London. Youzhny had battled his way to his his ninth ATP World Tour final on clay at Munich just before his arrival in England.

Yen-Hsun Lu outlasted Michael Russell 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 to win for the first time since June in a two-hour- 47-minute thriller. He converted all three of his break point chances in the decisive set and set up a second-round clash with defending champion and No. 2 seed Juan Martin del Potro.

In other first-round matches Monday, Indian Somdev Devvarman defeated fellow qualifier Yuichi Sugita of Japan 6-0, 7-6(6) and German Philipp Petzschner rallied past Russia's Teimuraz Gabashvili 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.