Australian Lleyton Hewitt insists he is not championship material at Wimbledon despite having a 100% record on grass this year so far. Hewitt maintained his record with a crushing first round victory over Sweden's Magnus Gustafsson at the All-England club this afternoon. The fifth seed dropped just seven games as he triumphed 6-1 6-2 6-4 and with back-to-back tournament wins on grass before he arrived at Wimbledon, he is many people's favourite to lift the men's crown this year. However, the 20-year-old doesn't share their sentiments.
"I haven't been past the third round here and lost in the first round last year so I'm not considering myself in the first few of the favourites, that's for sure. I give myself an outside chance. I'm not afraid to step out there against anyone on grass now but there's a lot of other guys who have been to the latter stages of Wimbledon who know it a lot better than I do," he explained.
South African Wayne Ferreira withdrew from the tournament this afternoon although it looked like he would have been making an early exit anyway as he lost the first two sets of his opening round clash with Russian opponent Andrei Stoliarov and was trailing 3-0 in the third before he announced his decision to pull out. Afterwards, he blamed the heat for his early exit, claiming it caused him respiratory problems.
Australian Pat Rafter's dream of becoming the first Australian since Pat Cash to lift the Wimbledon title is very much alive after he progressed with a 6-2 7-6 (9-7) 6-3 victory over Czech Daniel Vacek. Last year's beaten finalist is not confident that he can go that one step further than he did 12 months ago and win at Wimbledon. "I think I now know that I have a good chance of winning. Last year gave me that extra little bit of confidence going into the tournament," he explained after today's win.
Number 16 seed Vladimir Voltchkov of Belarus, a qualifer last year who went on to reach the semi-finals and become the first qualifer to do so since John McEnroe back in 1977, made an early exit this time around when he was beaten 6-3 6-7 7-6 7-5 by Russia's Mikhail Youzhny.
Seventh seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov had a comfortable 6-4 6-2 6-4 victory over Yong-Il Yoon of Korea while Tenth seed Thomas Enqvist came through with a straight sets victory over Czech Martin Damm.
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
