They had him pencilled in as the kid who might checkmate the old master Pete Sampras this year. Having beaten the number one at the pre-Wimbledon Stella Artois final, Lleyton Hewitt had finally matured.

The swearing was still blue, but the attitude, the hustling and the big hitting game had been tempered with a little thought and vision. Sampras had him mentally tagged as a serious threat. He said so.

Instead the number seven seed rushed in and was caught by fool's checkmate when 56th ranked Jan-Michael Gambill beat him 6-3, 6-2, 7-5. Like a blond ponytailed streak across the lawns, Hewitt came and is now gone to a player who is looking forward to the new Jaguar F type that is coming out next year to add to his collection. There were six cars last count. Celebration, tennis style.

Losing the first two sets, the 19-year-old from Adelaide had a chance to lever his way back in the third, going 5-2 ahead. But he let that go, too, squandering three set points.

"Who knows," said Hewitt, "he just served bombs all the time, who knows if I could have broken him twice?" Indeed.

Gambill (23), languishing outside the cosy group of players who are household names, naturally hopes the win will spark a revival his fortunes.

"That match proves to me once again that I can, against a top guy, play a mentally tough match for three straight sets and further," he said.

Andre Agassi treats Wimbledon as a mountaineer sees the slopes of Everest. You go up one stage at a time, get used to the air and then move on. So it was that the former champion lost his first set to Taylor Dent, who has yet to win a first career title, compared to Agassi's 45.

Until this year, the US Open had been the only Grand Slam tournament Dent had ever played and in truth he should have been the one suffering from altitude sickness. Dent was making his Wimbledon debut, but his father Phil played here 12 times, his best result getting to the quarter finals in 1977 where he lost to qualifier John McEnroe in five sets.

The original diagnosis for Agassi was quickly reassessed when he followed the 26 first set with 6-3, 6-0, and 4-0 for the match as Dent retired injured. Agassi subsequently explained his recent malaise, including the end to the French Open when he disappeared into the ether with girlfriend Steffi Graf after blisters ended his run.

"Denial isn't just a river in Egypt," he declared. Would someone please shoot the script writer?

The closest the men have to an Anna Kournikova is probably Gustavo Kuerten. Okay, throw in Agassi and Hewitt, but "Guga", with his platted hair and flailing arms, exudes a benign but feral charm that had Court Two swarming with teenage girls armed with disposable cameras.

"I think I have a little bit of . . . my soul is not too white you know ?" he said.

Accentuated by the intimacy of the outside court, the Brazilian French Open champion was within a long fingernail of his cooing fans and of taking an early flight back home to Florinapolis. Departing to the unheralded Chris Woodruff might even have ruffled the unflappable Guga who, in the end, inched rather than thrusted towards becoming the first player since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win Roland Garros and Wimbledon back to back.

Prior to yesterday, Kuerten's 13-match winning streak was the longest on tour this year, equalling the 13-match streak Hewitt assembled in January.

A tiebreak in the fourth set gave Kuerten the marginal advantage after two hours and 45 minutes of play. Typically the fourth seed saw the first match as simply one to win, his serve particularly proving solid. Kuerten won 90 per cent of his first serve points and whistled 29 aces against the tough hustling American.

What will have satisfied 24-year-old Guga is that during the match he hit more volley winners (14) than backhand winners (11).

"I still don't have the greatest volley in the game," said Kuerten. "So I need a little bit of serve. I try to learn with the other guys, maybe not only power but the right serve at the right time."

Pat Rafter, Mark Philippoussis, Marat Safin and Tim Henman all came through, Henman staggering a little in the first set. But Goran Ivanisevic departed the tournament taking his addled head with him. No surprise there. The three-times finalist hit 30 aces and still managed to lose to Arnaud Clement. As Goran used to say in such circumstances: "I think I lost my mind."