Amelie Mauresmo made an early exit from the Sydney International in Sydney on Tuesday after Kim Clijsters [Images] and Justin Henin-Hardenne had both cruised to victory.

Mauresmo was knocked out by rising Serb Ana Ivanovic 6-3, 7-5 in her first appearance this year and final warm-up before the Australian Open starts next week.

Her limp performance was in stark contrast to the Belgian pair of Clijsters and Henin-Hardenne, who both eased into the quarter-finals.

US Open champion Clijsters overpowered Chinese qualifier Na Li 6-3, 6-1 while Henin-Hardenne also made light work of her second round encounter with Russia's [Images] Vera Dushevina, cruising to a 6-2, 6-2 victory.

A rusty Henin-Hardenne beat Martina Hingis [Images] in straight sets the previous day but raised her game to another level on Tuesday as she extended her unbeaten run in Australia over three years.

Russia's 2004 US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova was given a free ride into the last eight when Dinara Safina pulled out of their match after losing the first set 6-3 because of blisters on her feet.

Clijsters stormed to victory in just 53 minutes to safely advance to the next round in her first match in Australia for two years.

The world number two reeled off the last six games after dropping serve for the only time in the match in the opening game of the second set.

Clijsters missed last year's Australian season because of injury and only arrived in Sydney two days ago after winning an exhibition tournament in Hong Kong.

As top seed, she was given a bye in the first round but said she initially struggled because of the climate change.

"It was really cold in Hong Kong so I was going from one extreme to the other," she told a news conference.

"I was struggling with the heat in the first set. My skin was burning even though I put lots of sunscreen on."

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