Martina Hingis has lost none of her chirpiness during her five-year sabbatical from Wimbledon. The last time the former world number one set eyes on the grass as a competitor was leaving as a disappointed first-round loser in 2001.

Yesterday after disposing of 18-year-old debutante Olga Savchuk 6-2, 6-2 in that old fashioned way of slicing and placing the ball in the opposite side of the court to her opponent, she was loath to be reminded of the intervening years when she struggled with a chronic foot injury.

Still, winning here as a 16-year-old in 1997 and now tilting for a second title at the ripe old age of 25, Hingis has the game to create a little mayhem deep into the tournament and the mouth to do so elsewhere. Some things never change. Her game is much the same as it was before power entered the equation with the Williams sisters and once again her ability to be canny and balanced was easily enough to make her passage to the second round trouble free.

Afterwards Hingis breezily took a swipe at most of the current coaches on the planet, claiming that many of the players in the draw are not proficient technically and rely totally on blowing their opposition away with power. Both Hingis and Justine Henin-Hardenne are seen to be the classical players in the draw. "I do not respect many of the coaches who are out there because I don't think they are doing the right things with the girls," observed Hingis. "I don't know what the reason is, whether they're not watching or why they do things which are technically incorrect.

"They don't teach the girls the right things. I mean watch Federer who is really playing the top-notch tennis out there. He is the best so go watch him."

Needless to say coaches will exempt themselves from Hingis's tongue but her theory has a resonance of truth and almost all of the young players coming through now are of the Bollittieri school of slash and burn tennis. Big serve, massive 'no tomorrow' ground strokes off a large frame and very little of that drop shot, lob, slice stuff.

The Hingis method is not to give her opponent the same shot back twice in order to keep her out of her rhythm. Yesterday that was more than adequate as it was with her fellow technician, Henin-Hardenne.

The Belgian French Open winner, who has made it to the semi-finals here in 2002-03 had what you could call a light work out against one of the army of Chinese players here, who hope to come good for the Beijing Olympics. China is like that. They turn on a tennis tap in a province the size of Europe and players come tumbling into Grand Slams.

Meng Yuan, ranked 99 in the world, may need those years between now and 2008 as Henin-Hardenne swept her aside 6-0, 6-1. More diplomatically schooled, Henin-Hardenne agreed but saw variety as part of the game's attraction.

Of the top seeds Kim Clijsters was the other main draw. A technician in her own right, she's one of the few who can hit a backhand winner while doing the splits. As scary to watch as it looks to perform Clijsters chipped away to win her first set against Russia's Vera Zvonereva 7-5 before a more comfortable 6-3 in the second for the match.