Hewitt overcomes Schalken in marathon

No 1 seed recaptures composure to go through after throwing away two-set lead while Argentinian claims place in history

Two of the best matches in the five-year history of Wimbledon's new Court One brought double disappointment for the Dutch yesterday. Familiarity almost bred contempt before Lleyton Hewitt, twice a comfortable winner against his good friend Sjeng Schalken in the past five weeks, squeezed past him 6-2, 6-2, 6-7, 1-6, 7-5 after frittering away four match points for a straight sets victory. Then youth had its day again as a weary Richard Krajicek finally succumbed to Belgium's Xavier Malisse, 9-7 in the fifth set.

The first match of a thoroughly enthralling afternoon seemed to turn on an over-rule in the third set tie-break, which went against Australia's Hewitt and unexpectedly threw him, prompting the previously dormant Schalken to rouse himself and threaten a sensation. He could have achieved it, breaking the top seed twice in the final set, only to lose that advantage immediately, to love on each occasion.

For almost two hours the match had seemed to be heading in only one direction. Schalken, recently beaten by the world No 1 at the French Open and then Queen's, had insisted that "he won't hit me off court", but that was the way of it through two one-sided sets. Even in an auditorium no more than half full for the midday start, Schalken looked overawed at having finally made it to the quarter-final of a Grand Slam tournament. It had taken him 29 attempts, a figure exceeded by only three players in the modern era, but such persistence was not matched by consistency yesterday.

Unforced errors offered Hewitt his breakthrough in the first set, which was brought to a close after less than half an hour by Schalken's feeble double fault. Improvement on his forehand brought an unexpected break to lead 2-1 in the second set but he was broken himself in the next game and once more conceded the set on a double fault.

In the third, Schalken regularly found himself having to retrieve break points, offering 11 of them that Hewitt, incredibly, was unable to put away. At 6-5, for instance, the Australian had match point four times, and seemed destined for an early lunch. Each time he failed, however, and was thus sucked into a tie-break. Trailing three-four, he left a forehand by Schalken, which was called out, though it had landed on the line; the umpire, Javier Moreno-Perez correctly over-ruled and Hewitt ("I hope you feel good") was never quite the same again.

He netted a forehand to concede his first set of the tournament and almost at once lost another, by the astounding margin of 6-1. Schalken was by now confident enough to venture to the net occasionally, and was rewarded with a good proportion of winners, while his strategy of playing to the Hewitt forehand paid increasingly rich dividends. "He should have won the third set and in the fourth it was 6-1 but I was still in trouble on my serve," Schalken admitted. "So then it was a big test for Lleyton."

Hewitt passed it, though only after some bad moments, dropping his serve to trail 2-1 and 3-2. Each time he bounced straight back, pumping himself up with a "c'mon" and a gesture to his heart. Then at 5-5 and deuce, he committed a rare double fault, whereupon it was Schalken's turn to waste the opportunity. "I wasn't prepared to give it away that easily," said Hewitt of his first Wimbledon quarter-final. A fine running pass gave him the chance to make that a first semi-final and Schalken, dispirited at last, put a forehand wide for his 66th and most costly unforced error of a memorable match.

There was another one to follow it as Krajicek, the 1996 champion, dragged his patched up body through five more sets before going down 6-1, 4-6, 6-2, 3-6, 9-7 to Greg Rusedski's conqueror Malisse. After the four-hour baseline match that preceded it, this was a shorter, sharper affair at two hours 27 minutes, though still not short enough for the 30 year-old Krajicek, who had endured a five-setter plus rain delays against Mark Phillipoussis in the previous round, after an 11-9 fifth-set against the seeded American James Blake.

The strain seemed to be telling in a 20-minute first set, before he rallied to break Malisse in the ninth game of the second and serve out to draw level. The third and fourth were also shared before a final act in which there was no break until the 15th game. Not surprisingly, the younger man was looking the more sprightly by that stage, but the Dutchman kept coming up with a response until, at 7-7, his 11th double fault proved to be the decisive moment. Malisse served out to take his place in a semi-final against the even younger David Nalbandian. "I was expecting to lose in the second or third round," he said. "Every round after that is a bonus."

The admirable Krajicek had booked his holiday home in Majorca for yesterday and will now be able to join his wife and children there, feeling proud if frustrated. An activity holiday seems unlikely.

* Clement Morel of France, the third seed in the boys' singles event, and Ryan Henry of Australia, played a titanic second-round match that featured the longest final set in Wimbledon singles history. The final score was 7-5, 6-7, 26-24 in Henry's favour. At 24-24, a forehand from Morel sailed long to give Henry the break, and he served out to 15, a forehand volley sealing the win on his first match point. The match broke the 20-18 record set in 2000 by Philippoussis and Schalken.