Title hopeful David Nalbandian made a good start to his Australian Open campaign on Tuesday.

The Argentine, who ended the 2007 season in fine fettle, was joined in round two by fifth seed David Ferrer, another player with outside hopes of going all the way in Melbourne.

Nalbandian crushed home hope Robert Smeets, the Australian wild card going down 6-1 6-1 7-6 (7/3).

The 10th seed showed few signs of the back problem which troubled him in the run-up to the event and raced to victory as Smeets struggled with his serve, landing just 44 per cent of his first serves in.

That allowed Nalbandian to break him six times as he completed his victory after just an hour and 43 minutes on court.

Ferrer followed Nalbandian onto Court Three and duly joined him in the last 64.

The US Open semi-finalist thrashed Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-2 6-2 6-1.

The Spaniard hit 30 winners to 15 from his opponent, who produced too many errors to ever be in contention.