Fifth seed Tomas Berdych has said that he can see a marked improvement in his early performances at this year's Australian Open.

Berdych ensured safe passage to the third round earlier today with a straight-sets win over Guillaume Rufin in exactly two hours.

The 27-year-old, who has been knocked out at the quarter-final stage in his last two appearances at Melbourne Park, believes that he must concentrate on finding form and focus in the early rounds before thinking too far ahead.

He told reporters: "I had to work hard out there to win in just 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 faces a daunting run to the latter stages in this year's opening Grand Slam, with defending champion Novak Djokovic to come in the last eight if both stay unbeaten.