It was Jerome Golmard, the Frenchman whom Tim Henman defeated in the first round of this year's Australian Open, who succinctly and cogently summed up his play.

"Tim has a pretty good serve and can be a brilliant volleyer. But when he plays from the back of the court there is nobody on the circuit who fears him."

This, it should be noted, was said before Golmard lost, so there was no sour grapes involved. Merely one professional talking about another with absolute honesty.

Aside from the comfort zone of the Wimbledon grass, and also on the indoor circuit, where wind and sun are obviously not a factor, Henman will always be vulnerable if he cannot impose his serve-and-volley game because his ground strokes simply do not carry sufficient weight to trouble the majority of opponents, and when he does try and press his forehand, it frequently disintegrates under pressure, as was the case in his fourth round match against Chris Woodruff of the United States which he so disappointingly lost 7-5, 1-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.

A fierce, cold wind, played havoc with the serve and ground strokes of both players, but Woodruff expressed surprise that Henman was loth to leave the baseline. "When he beat me during Wimbledon last year I had absolutely no chance to get into the points because he was serving so well. Here I was able to construct the points the way I like to. I was surprised he didn't serve and volley more."

Henman did not feel he had played badly: "I felt like I was competing extremely hard. It's only a matter of time before I start making the quarter-finals of the other Grand Slams. I would have liked to have done it here." It is understandable Henman should stay as positive as possible, even in the face of such a wretched defeat, but the facts are that since he was feebly knocked out in the first round of his last Grand Slam, the US Open, he has managed only 12 wins in 20 matches.

A crushing defeat by France's Nicolas Escude+ in Adelaide did little to build his confidence at the start of the year, and although he served better during his three wins here in Melbourne, the old first-serve vulnerability arose again against Woodruff (10 double faults), and consequently his weak second serve came under attack from one of the game's better returners, particularly on the backhand.

That said, Woodruff is no world beater. He finished last year just outside the top 50, and had never previously reached the fourth round of any Slam. In short, he was exactly the sort of player that Henman loses to time and time again, which says as much about the British player's mental frailty as about the frailty of his forehand.

Passions are quickly raised when it is suggested Henman changes his coach, David Felgate. This will not happen, for Henman holds to the belief that the man who has brought him this far, can spur him ever further.

His aims remain high. But whereas three-years-ago when, as a 22-year-old, he won his first tournament in Sydney, there appeared considerable reason to suppose these aims might be fulfilled, this optimism has since faded rapidly.

After Britain's Davis Cup match with the Czech Republic in Ostrava next month Henman will play indoors in Rotterdam, where he reached the final last year, and London, before heading out to the US for the first of the two of nine Tennis Masters Series tournaments (the newly packaged Super 9s) in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne.

He will need to do well in either or both to convince anyone that the self-styled and dynamic "stage two" of his career is anything more than wishful thinking.

Had he beaten Woodruff, Henman would have played Pete Sampras in the quarter-finals.

Sampras bounced back from his narrow escape against Zimbabwean Wayne Black in the third round - he was two sets down - to beat the Czech Republic's Slava Dosedel 6-1 6-2 3-6 6-1.

And top seed Andre Agassi used all his know-all to fend off big-serving 16th seed Mark Philippoussis for the loss of only the third set as well.

With Agassi now facing an unseeded opponent just like Sampras - in his case Moroccan Hicham Arazi - it is looking odds-on that the semi-finals will bring the two Americans face-to-face again six months after their Wimbledon final, which Sampras won in straight sets.

Philippoussis is capable of striking huge winners and blowing anyone off the court, but against the fleet-footed Agassi he needed to hit two or three in succession and this, for the most part, proved beyond him.

"I needed to play well and I did. I went out there and I executed. I thought he was playing some smart tennis, but I'm experienced enough to make some headaches for him." said Agassi.

Apart from the second-round defeat of France's Amelie Mauresmo, last year's beaten finalist, the women's tournament has steadfastly refused to catch fire, although Anna Kournikova has been doing her level best to brighten things up by flashing googie eyes in the direction of Mark Philippoussis.

Both the Scud and La Kournikova were beaten in the fourth round, so all local beaches and nightclubs will be on red alert from now on for any sign of extra-tennis activities.

Kournikova's defeat was every bit as predictable as that of Philippoussis, with Lindsay Davenport, the reigning Wimbledon champion and number two seed, clumping her 6-4, 6-3.

"It's better if I get to the top slowly and stay there longer, instead of getting there quickly and not staying there," said Kournikova, who will be 19 in June and has yet to win any sort of senior tournament.

Meanwhile the revival of Jennifer Capriati continues apace with the 23-year-old American reaching her first grand slam quarter-final since 1993, after which her precocious early career began to go horribly wrong.

The rehab path has been long and stony for Capriati, who defeated Steffi Graf in the 1992 Olympic final in Barcelona. She was a semi-finalist at the 1990 French Open, when she was only 14, and also reached the last four at Wimbledon and the US Open the next year; now she has a wonderful chance of a semi-final place here.

Her fourth-round win over Switzerland's Patty Schnyder, the earlier conqueror of Mauresmo, now pits her against Japan's lower-ranked Ai Sugiyama in the quarterfinals, Sugiyama having surprisingly defeated Mary Pierce.