Myskina through but Henman out

Tennis:  Former champion Anastasia Myskina eased into the third round of this year's French Open today but, in the men's draw…

Tennis:  Former champion Anastasia Myskina eased into the third round of this year's French Open today but, in the men's draw, England's Tim Henman crashed out.

Russian Myskina, who emerged triumphant two years ago, was a 6-2 6-4 winner of Melinda Czink in one of the day's early matches in Paris.

Her next opponent will be Ana Ivanovic who needed just 47 minutes to win her second-round encounter.

The Serbian player thrashed home hope Emilie Loit for the loss of just two games, winning 6-1 6-1.

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Ivanovic was the player who beat Amelie Mauresmo, this year's top seed, in last season's tournament and she will be looking to take another scalp in the last 32.

Daniela Hantuchova (15) was also among the early winners, fighting back from a set down to beat Emmanuelle Gagliardi.

In the men's singles, Lleyton Hewitt overcame an early scare to secure a straight-sets win against Frenchman Mathieu Montcourt.

The former Wimbledon champion found himself set point down in the first set, but after emerging from that crisis unscatched he went on to secure a 7-5 6-3 6-3 victory.

Hewitt next faces Dominik Hrbaty who saw off big-serving Ivo Karlovic in five sets.

Other seeds to progress included Tommy Robredo (7) and Radek Stepanek (11).

However, home hope Sebastien Grosjean suffered a shock defeat to Argentina's Martin Vassalo Arguello.

Henman challenge ended when he failed to launch the fightback he needed in his rain-curtailed match against Dmitry Tursunov.

Henman was trailing by two sets to love when the match was halted for bad light on Wednesday night with the local clock having raced past 9pm.

But while Henman took the third set in fine style he failed to take his numerous chances in the fourth set, eventually going down 6-3 6-2 4-6 6-4.  PA