Whiter-than-white Tim Henman, plastered around the bus stops and hoardings of London as the Persil man, remained in the tournament yesterday after a match where Hicham Arazi proved more difficult to remove than expected.

Henman will look at the replay of this match and see that his game needs a little more robust biological action. A tougher player with a heavier serve than the 32nd seed from Morocco would have had Henman in a spin for longer than just a half an hour in the third set and the beginning of the fourth set.

In only the third time that the middle Sunday of the tournament has had play, Centre Court took on a dab of colour. The average age of the spectators about halved and the noise level doubled as the debenture-ticket holders remained at home and the stadium filled with the face-painted and flag-waving mob, all of whom paid at the gate when they arrived.

Not surprisingly, most of them had come to support Henman, and it was understandable he responded to their encouragement, although in total he earned only one break point more than Arazi throughout the match, converting six of those.

Arazi punished Henman with service breaks only four times despite putting the fifth seed's delivery under severe pressure on 11 occasions. The ease with which Henman's serve buckled must be cause for alarm.

Henman may also look at those he sees to be his main rivals for the title and be surprised at how easily they came through their games, especially top seed Roger Federer.

In what appeared an effortless demonstration, the Swiss champion imperiously swept past the highly-regarded Thomas Johansson in just over an hour and a half, while Andy Roddick, in a fender-bending demonstration of serving power, bludgeoned his compatriot Taylor Dent out of the competition, also in three sets.

Even Mark Philippoussis - or "Flip", as he's called around the locker-room - managed to put seven horrific months behind him and progress to the fourth round at the expense of Fernando Gonzalez from Chile.

Yes, yes, Gonzalez is a clay-court player you may not have heard of, but Flip arrived in London without a victory in a regular tournament since his third-round win over Mario Ancic at the Australian Open. That's a seven-month drought without a single match win.

Last year he was unseeded and made it to the final before Federer carved him up, but once again the scent of the grass has perked him up and Philippoussis is beginning to look, well, a little bit awesome. Interestingly, he now faces Henman for a place in the quarter-finals.

The last time the two faced each other at Wimbledon in 2000, the Australian won the match in five sets. Henman, one of the more intelligent players in the draw, knows his pairing with Philippoussis represents the most serious threat so far to his hopes of measuring up to this year's soaring expectations.

"The conditions with the wind, it was swirling around. You can't always play the quality of tennis that you'd like," said Henman. "And sure, I think my level had dipped a little bit. But you know, from love-two down in the fourth and break points down, to finish it off 6-2 was very satisfying.

"I can play better. But I think I will play better given the style of play that I'm going to play against. I'm pretty sure Philippoussis is going to come at me the whole time with his serve, both first and second serves. I think that suits me okay."

Flip could have written Henman's script.

"I think I know exactly how Tim's going to play - everyone knows. He knows how I'm going to play. I'll definitely enjoy myself," he said.

All knowing then. The psychology has already started but Roddick would not be drawn in to looking ahead and treated his match with Davis Cup team-mate Dent with his regular crystal-clear intent.

"You're not thinking camaraderie, Davis Cup team-mate, anything like that. You're thinking about winning. I think that's universally understood in this game," said Roddick following the 6-3, 7-6, 7-6 match.

He is rewarded with a meeting with Germany's Alexander Popp in the fourth round.

Federer trounced Johansson 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 in what was their second meeting on grass in the past month. Federer also beat the 29-year-old Swede in Halle and has now won all six matches the two have played.

"I got a lot of first serves in. I felt very comfortable and started to play really well," Federer said.

"It was a great atmosphere - I think people were just so pleased to see some tennis," he said in reference to the People's Sunday crowd.

The reigning champion now meets the towering Croatian Ivo Karlovic.

"I've never faced someone so tall," said Federer of his 6ft-10in opponent. "It will be interesting to see because everyone is talking of that big serve. I would like to face it and see how I can play with it. But I think I can handle it. We'll see how big that serve is."

That sounds disconcertingly confident from the player who has been able to put all of his opponents through the wash from round one.