Henin and Gasquet back with wins

Justine Henin and Richard Gasquet made winning comebacks at the Brisbane International.

Former world number one Henin, playing her first tournament in over a year and a half after retiring from the game in May 2008, beat second seed Nadia Petrova 7-5 7-5 in one hour and 37 minutes.

She will now play Kazakhstan's Sesil Karatantcheva, who won a topsy-turvy encounter against home favourite Casey Dellacqua 6-2 0-6 7-6 (7/1).

Gasquet was also impressive on his return, beating Finland's Jarkko Nieminen 6-3 4-6 6-4.

Frenchman Gasquet is hoping to return to the top 10 following a controversial 2009 in which the Court of Arbitration for Sport finally cleared him of wrongdoing after he failed a drugs test in March.

Gasquet insisted he inadvertently took cocaine after kissing a woman in a Miami nightclub - a claim backed by CAS despite the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) demanding the player be banned.

After his match today, the Frenchman said: "It was good to play with nothing in my head.

"It was important I could play relaxed."

Elsewhere in the men's draw, seventh seed Jeremy Chardy went out at the first-round stage, beaten 6-4 6-4 by Colombia's Alejandro Falla.

Chardy's fellow Frenchmen Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra also lost, to Wayne Odesnik and Harel Levy respectively, but Marc Gicquel did go through thanks to a 6-3 6-1 thrashing of Philipp Petzschner.

Ana Ivanovic enjoyed an impressive win as she looks to get her career back on track following a disappointing year.

The third-seeded Serbian, another former world number one, beat Jelena Dokic 7-5 1-6 6-3 but fifth seed Alisa Kleybanova lost 6-4 2-6 6-2 to fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Lucie Safarova, Timea Bacsinszky and Roberta Vinci were also victorious.

Top seed Andy Roddick made smooth progress into the next round with a 7-6 (7/5) 6-2 defeat of Australian Peter Luczak, as did Radek Stepanek, who beat wild card John Millman for the loss of just four games.

Eighth seed Thomaz Bellucci survived a three-set tussle against experienced Argentinian Juan Ignacio Chela, winning 6-3 3-6 6-1.

There were no late surprises in the women's draw with fourth seed Daniela Hantuchova and sixth seed Aleksandra Wozniak both advancing.

Wozniak cruised past Galina Voskoboeva 6-2 6-2 while Hantuchova edged out Ekaterina Ivanova 6-1 6-7 (5/7) 6-1.

Hungary's Agnes Szavay is also through after beating Shuai Peng 5-7 6-4 6-2.