As expected Wimbledon’s opening day
saw Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippousis cruise through to the second
round, but against the script our top female hope Samantha Stosur is
gone, along with Evie Dominikovic.

Big things were being
expected of Stosur on the Wimbledon grass and while she carried a
quadriceps injury, her 7-6 (7-1) 6-4 loss to Czech Michaela Pastikova
made a mockery of predictions she could go all the way this year.
Dominikovic managed to win her first set but then Japan’s Aiko Nakamura
climbed back to win 5-7 6-3 6-4.

If our women’s hopes are in
tatters (and don’t count on Nicole Pratt) it was business as usual for
Hewitt, while winning is still something of a novelty for the Scud!

Playing
the opening match on a very soft Court One, Hewitt showed he’s right
back in the groove after a 12-week injury layoff with an authoritative
6-3 6-3 6-1 win over Belgian Christophe Rochus and demonstrated he’s
been working hard on his serve during his forced absence by sending
down 19 aces.

“Apart from a couple of double faults I felt I
served extremely well today,” Hewitt said post match. “It was a good
hit-out without wasting a lot of energy either.”

Philippoussis
has been making more headlines off the court over the last year or two
with a love life that reads like a cheap novel, but give him the smell
of Wimbledon grass and suddenly he’s transformed from easy beat to
having Sunday week on his mind.

Perhaps we’re getting ahead of
ourselves though because while he was very impressive in beating
Slovakian Karol Beck 7-5 6-4 6-2, he now faces fifth seed and
Australian Open champ Marat Safin in the second round. If he can get
past “mad” Marat then all the other top hopes will be on red alert. But
none more so than his compatriot Hewitt. They are scheduled to clash in
the quarter finals if both keep winning.