Hewitt warns best to come

Lleyton Hewitt maintained his ominous form yesterday, reaching his first Wimbledon quarter-final with an accomplished 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 victory over Mikhail Youzhny of Russia. The world No 1 and tournament favourite, hoping to become the first Australian to win the title since Pat Cash in 1987, faces the Dutchman Sjeng Schalken tomorrow for a place in the last four.

Hewitt has yet to lose a set in the championships but insists that the standard of his game can keep improving. "I think you can always get better," he said. "So far I got through unscathed. I still feel there's small things in my game that I can still work on for the next, hopefully, three matches.

"Come Wednesday against Sjeng I know I'm going to have to play better than I played today. It's going to be an extremely tough match. But I still feel like I'm able to go up another gear when I need to."

For the rest of the men left in the tournament, the prospect of him doing so is daunting. While Youzhny had taken a set off Hewitt in Rosmalen the week before Wimbledon, he was unable to counter the Australian's blistering pace and superb returns yesterday. Hewitt broke the 20-year-old in the second game of the match and saved a break point in the fifth on his way to the first set.

With his speed allowing him to make life difficult while Youzhny played from the baseline, the Russian came to the net more in the second. "I was expecting him to hit a fair few drop shots, he played about 50,000 of them [in Rosmalen]," Hewitt said. "I was actually surprised that it took him so deep into the second set before he started."

That set was sealed with three breaks in Hewitt's favour against one to Youzhny. The third set saw the best tennis, including some superb backhand winners from Youzhny and some mental toughness from Hewitt to save a series of break points, and was decided by two errors by the Russian in the final game.

At the opposite end of the draw, yesterday saw another comeback win for Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti, who dropped the first and third sets against Arnaud Clement before prevailing 3-6, 7-5, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3. He now plays David Nalbandian, of Argentina, for a place in the semi-final. Lapentti has won all four of his matches from behind, three of them in five sets and two of them against Britons.

Those wanting to see the battle between the two most dangerous floaters, Mark Phil- ippoussis and the 1996 champion, Richard Krajicek, were made to wait until today as the rain held over the match.

Wimbledon bid farewell to Barry Cowan yesterday as he announced that he was retiring from the game. "This year has proven to be frustrating," said the 27-year-old from Ormskirk. "Having thought long and hard about my career I have decided that after 14 years of playing competitive tennis that now is the right time, at the greatest championship in the world, to bring what has been a highly enjoyable career to a close."