Seventh seed Lleyton Hewitt was bombed out of Wimbledon in a centre court shocker today as he failed spectacularly to live up to his pre-tournament hype. The brash Australian teenager, who hammered Pete Sampras to win the Stella Artois Championship at Queen's Club earlier this month, was blitzed in straight sets by world number 56 Jan-Michael Gambill of the United States. Hewitt was sunk 6-3 6-2 7-5 in just over two hours - even wasting three-set points in the third set when 5-3 up.
But there was good news for the Wimbledon masses as Andre Agassi recovered from an amazing first-set loss to see off the challenge of little-known Taylor Dent, who had to retire through injury. Second seed Agassi had an almighty scare when Dent, ranked a lowly 256, grabbed the first set 6-2. But the stunned former champion fought back and levelled the match in the second set and then won 10 consecutive games without reply before Dent's retirement.
The home crowd received a huge boost after Greg Rusedski's exit yesterday, when Tim Henman finally found some form on grass as he charged into the second round today. The British number one, who fell at the first hurdle in both his last two tournaments on grass, kept the home flag flying as he beat Thailand's Paradorn Srichaphan 5-7 6-3 6-1 6-3.
Colourful fourth seed and French Open Champion Gustavo Kuerten continued his improvement on grass with a 6-4 6-7 7-5 7-6 win over American Chris Woodruff.
With the exception of Hewitt and Germany's Nicolas Kiefer it was a good day for the seeds. The 13th seeding proved unlucky for injury-stricken Kiefer, who lost in four sets to his compatriot Tommy Haas.
Third seed Magnus Norman breezed past Australian doubles specialist Mark Woodforde when, at 6-4 6-2 2-0, Woodforde retired hurt. Fifth seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov had few problems disposing of Switzerland's Roger Federer in straight sets and 10th-seeded Australian Mark Philippoussis won in four sets against Austria's Jurgen Melzer.
Philippoussis' compatriot, 12th seed Patrick Rafter, ended the dreams of Britain's Jamie Delgado in straight sets, while powerful Russian teenager Marat Safin, seeded 15, brushed past Spaniard Galo Blanco in straight sets. But there was a sad early exit for Wimbledon crowd favourite Goran Ivanisevic, who lost in four sets to Arnaud Clement.
