The defending champion, who withdrew from last week's China Open with an elbow problem, showed little sign of injury against his unseeded opponent, winning 83 percent of his first serve points in a match that lasted an hour and 15 minutes.
Djokovic started strongly, opening up a 3-0 lead to take control of the first set, but displayed signs of rust with 18 unforced errors.
He suffered a minor blip when he was broken in the first game of the second set, but held his nerve and hit back with two successive breaks to seal the win, helped by his opponent making 40 unforced errors.
Spaniard David Ferrer, the No. 10 seed, suffered a first-round upset loss to unseeded Feliciano Lopez who beat his compatriot 7-6(3) 4-6 7-6(4).
Unseeded Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov served up another upset when he beat Frenchman Richard Gasquet, seeded 14th, 6-4 6-4, and 19-year-old Alexander Zverev's produced another shock when he defeated eighth seed Marin Cilic of Croatia.
