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Melbourne - Czech fifth seed Tomas Berdych swept into the third round of the Australian Open with a straight sets win over Frenchman Guillaume Rufin on Wednesday.
Berdych, coming off the Czech Republic's Davis Cup victory over Spain in Prague last November, was too strong for the 92nd-ranked Rufin, winning 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 in exactly 2hrs.
He was in little bother breaking Rufin's service six times and hitting 30 winners to 19.
"I don't know how many matches he (Rufin) has played on the big arena, but from what I know from my experience that it's quite tough to play one of the first matches like that," Berdych said.
"I had to work hard to win in three sets. It was a better match for me from the first round and that's what I always like to do improving one by one and not just bringing my best tennis for the first round.
"It was a quite solid game from me and I hope I can improve on that for the next round."
Berdych, who was runner-up to Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2010, has not been beyond two quarter-final appearances in Melbourne and gets his chance with world number four Nadal missing to go further in this year's tournament.
