Hewitt survives terrible scare

Before today Hewitt had looked virtually untouchable at Wimbledon as he raced into the quarter-finals without dropping a set.

His four previous opponents had lived with him on court for a total of just seven hours and 38 minutes and the world No1 was comfortably living up to his ranking and reputation.

From the moment the draw was made he looked like the man most likely to end Henman's dream of becoming Wimbledon champion in Golden Jubilee year.

Before today they were the only two of the top eight seeds left in the tournament.

Early on against Schalken the Australian looked certain to progress. Adelaide-born Hewitt raced into a 6-2, 6-2 lead after making his intentions clear from the start of the clash.

He began with a 122 mph serve on the first point of the match and broke Schalken's serve as early as the fourth game.

The world No1 needed only 28 minutes to take the first set from him and the second set was also a formality.

The Dutchman, who was then only showing occasional flashes of excellence, had his hopes raised briefly when he managed to break Hewitt in the fourth game of the third set.

But it was only a matter of time before Hewitt broke back.

He cancelled out his service reverse in the sixth game when an unforced error from Schalken ruined the good work he had done to save the two preceding break points.

He broke again in the eighth game to take the set but that is when the pressure started to tell.

Schalken upped his game significantly and Hewitt found it difficult to do the same. The set went with serve as the tension mounted and Hewitt eventually choked.

At 6-5 up he had four chances to break Schalken and win the match.

If he had done so, he could have claimed a reasonably comfortable passage all the way to the semi-finals.

Instead, he failed to take any of the opportunities and then lost the game and was defeated in a tie-break.

He did not recover from that quickly while Schalken grew in confidence and took the fourth set.

The Australian fought back in the fifth set although neither man could creditably claim to have held their nerve.

Before the final set had reached 4-4 there had been four consecutive service game breaks as the match stayed on a knife edge.

Hewitt survived a break point with the score at 5-5 and then went on to break Schalken's serve and eventually take the set.