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Home dreams fade as Hewitt crumbles
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-20 07:00

"I'm really just enjoying every second being out there."

It was an equally awesome rout by the 'Fed Ex', who rolled over Florian Mayer of Germany 6-1, 6-4, 6-0 in just 72 minutes on centre court as his drive for a seventh Grand Slam title revved up.

Federer, the world No 1, issued an ominous warning that he can still get better.

"I think I can definitely improve little things. I can maybe still improve my returning game, my serving, my volleying. There's still potential left," he said ahead of his next clash against Max Mirnyi, the 30th seed from Belarus.

Hewitt's former girlfriend Clijsters, seeded two, has been installed as tournament favourite by the bookies but is playing one game at a time as she struggles to beat the hip injury that she developed in Sydney last week.

The US Open champion downed China's Meng Yuan 6-4, 6-2 but needed medical attention on her right hip early in the second set and said the injury was making her participation in the tournament a day-to-day proposition.

"I'm happy with the win but my body doesn't feel too good at the moment," Clijsters said. "I'm happy to get through and give myself another day off tomorrow and hopefully I'll recover better."

Pierce will enjoy the next fortnight off after appearing to struggle with dry contact lenses as a hot wind blew through the court.

She racked up 41 unforced errors to Benesova's 19 and even seven aces from the 1995 Australian Open champion could not keep her in the match as her terrier-like opponent chased down every ball to break her serve five times.

"What went wrong? ... what didn't?," she said. "It was just one of those days. Not my day really."

"I thought I was going to win the second set, then felt pretty confident if I did that I would win the match in the third set - (I was) a bit surprised that didn't happen."
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