Agassi and Hewitt hit different notes

Lleyton Hewitt is a personality who inflicts himself on you like a kitchen corrosive. Andre Agassi is a soothing balm.

After the two players finished work yesterday, both safely through to the quarter-finals, Agassi, having performed his regular four-act play of waving and blowing kisses to each section of the crowd, was praised for his unwavering fitness, his dignity in the twilight of his career, his lionheartedness. Hewitt was put on the wrack and stretched.

"I feel like I'm dancing out there," said Agassi after beating Franco Squillari in five sets.

"I wasn't calling him (umpire) a spastic," said Hewitt to a snarling audience after polishing off Guillermo Canas in a hangover game from Sunday.

Hewitt's subsequent exchange at the press conference was particularly absurd.

"That's the second time you've done that this week."

"I wasn't calling him a spastic."

"It was picked up on microphones."

"That's not what I got the code (fine) for."

"You deny that?"

"I did not get the code for that."

"Either way, you were heard calling him a spastic. You did that on Monday as well."

"I didn't call him one. I can't recall calling him one."

This little spat could be costly. And that's not the $1000 dollar fine he received. With a crowd who throw eggs and coins at players who upset them, Hewitt could sour a quite a reasonable relationship. He is profane and confrontational. Agassi is waltzing, break dancing.

The American yesterday took considerable time to flush out his narrative on the fans. He meets 23-year-old Sebastian Grosjean in the next round, the last remaining French player in either the men's or women's singles draw.

The third seed was again peerless against Squillari, grinding up his tempo as the match progressed, losing the first set but winning the second and third. A 16 slump in the fourth suggested Agassi was spent in the cruel heat but from there the 31-year-old found yet another level, bulldozing the Argentinian 6-0 in the fifth.

It was pointed out that the American, who was measured using new technology, covered 3.643 kilometres, less than his opponent.

"First of all I'll tell you what's not correct about that is that I didn't run, I sprinted, so if we just change the word `run' to `sprint'. But that seems low. The question is are you more tired or less tired than your opponent. I'll never claim not to get tired. My goal is just to make sure I'm never as tired as my opponent is."

Hewitt left no time to get tired. It took him just three games to terminate his match, which over the two days lasted more than four hours. He broke for 5-2 in the fifth set before earning triple match points on his serve.

Nerves squandered those and a fourth but winning the fifth match point on offer, Hewitt took another step towards a final no Australian has won since Rod Laver in 1969. He meets the heavily fancied fourth-seed Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Grosjean defeated Galo Blanco, the unseeded slayer of Pete Sampras while Australian Wayne Arthurs, whose father played Davis Cup for Ireland, went out to Roger Federer 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. The last player through yesterday, Alex Corretja, meets Federer for a possible match with Agassi in the semi-finals.

The four women's quarter-finals are scheduled for today, the pick of which is Serena Williams' match up against Jennifer Capriati. The two Americans, seeded six and four respectively, are competing for a semi-final place against the winner of the match between favourite Martina Hingis and rank outsider Francesca Schiavone from Italy.

The bottom half remains less populated with big names. Belgian Justine Henin meets Lina Krasnoroutskaya with her compatriot Kim Clijsters facing Hungarian Petra Mandula.

Mandula, a 23-year-old qualifier ranked 131, has won $168,916 in her career to date, an amount Hingis would likely pick up at each tournament, while Henin and Clijsters represent the first time in Belgium's history that they will have two women ranked in the top 10.