TENNIS: Most players would have stepped on court with body armour discreetly fixed in place.
Probably the youngest serve-volley player left in tennis, 24-year-old Taylor Dent, may have had some opponents thinking personal safety. Not Lleyton Hewitt. The number three seed once again gobbled up Dent's huge serve. The harder he hit it, the hungrier Hewitt became for more.
After one inch-perfect passing shot beat Dent at the net, the mannerly American clapped his racquet in appreciation. When he looked across Centre Court for Hewitt's acknowledgement, all he saw was the screaming Australian hustler down on one knee, fist pumping the turf. Hewitt never stands on ceremony and though it occasionally irritates players, few fail to admire. Yesterday it took the former champion four sets to reach the quarter-finals for the third time, defeating Dent 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3.
Dent, the son of Australian Phil, who reached the 1977 Wimbledon quarter-finals, where he lost to John McEnroe, only occasionally had Hewitt stressed, the tie break in the third set falling his way to force the human spitfire spend 38 more minutes on court.
While Hewitt questioned several line calls to the irritation of Dent, he largely fought off the red mist, a feature of his game he's had to work on.
"Today I was actually conscious of trying not to let anything affect me basically and just think 'alright, well that's out of the way. It's out of my control now, why dwell on it?'"
Dent saw it differently and later questioned Hewitt's motives in querying calls. The implication was he puts umpires under pressure. In the fourth set, for instance, an overrule was inspired by Hewitt.
"I thought the umpire handled the situation poorly," said Dent. "That's not the right sign to send to the other linesmen around. If Hewitt is going to complain and starts to get these calls, that's just an unfair advantage for him."
Hewitt's match was the first on Centre Court yesterday; the other credible challengers followed him in a procession into tomorrow's quarter-finals.
Andy Roddick left Argentina's Guillermo Coria on the spoil heap in less than two hours; Fernando Gonzalez beat Russia's Mikhail Youzhny in just over two.
David Nalbandian, the Spanish rotter who beat Britain's Andy Murray, ousted another teenager, Richard Gasquet, from France.
The talented Gasquet contained the former Wimbledon finalist and 18th seed for just three sets, going down 6-4 and 7-6(7-3) before losing the third set 6-0. Like Murray the 19-year-old complained later of tiredness.
The only white-knuckle ride was Sébastien Grosjean's five-setter with Dimytri Tursunov. For a player who has just returned from a broken back, the Russian, Tursunov, has demonstrated just what commitment can accomplish.
But unlike Gasquet, Grosjean is a veteran of the tour and is used to three-hour-plus, five-set matches.
A semi-finalist here in 2003 and 2004, Grosjean took 41 minutes to win the first set 6-4 before dropping the second on a tiebreak. Again he took the lead and once more the 22-year-old responded with a 3-6 fourth set. Finally Tursunov had nothing to offer, a 6-1 final set in Grosjean's favour handing him a place in the quarter-final and a chance to steal Roddick's thunder.
Closing the evening's play, Roger Federer again smoothly advanced.
Juan Carlos Ferrero, a French Open winner, played a fine match. It wasn't enough. Against the title-holder a great game offers the only chance, a depressing reality for most of the players still in the draw.
Earlier Spain's Feliciano Lopez, the 26th seed who beat Marat Safin in the previous round, defeated former Wimbledon finalist Mario Ancic 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 in an hour and 40 minutes.
