TENNIS: The Australian Open is a killer. The frequently intense heat, coupled with persistent swirling winds and the stickiness of the Rebound Ace courts, puts a premium on physical conditioning, with the conservation of energy essential whenever possible and particularly during the first week.
With that in mind, Roger Federer, the multitalented Swiss number six seed, spent much of his second-round match against Germany's Lars Burgsmuller making careful note of the speed gun which recorded the velocity of his serve.
This was not because he wanted to see how fast he was serving, rather to check how slowly he could ping the ball down and still win the points. It was all about making absolutely sure he did not expend too much spare capacity, and his 6-3, 6-0, 6-3 victory was duly achieved with a minimum of fuel consumption.
Federer, on his day, has the ability to trouble and beat the best players in the world, but as yet he has not translated these talents into sustained success at grand slam level. On too many occasions he has run out of gas at crucial times, and he has been working hard on his physical conditioning in order to break through into the world's top five.
"Unlike my first-round match, when I had to do quite a lot of running around, it was all black and white to me," said Federer, who next faces Sweden's Andreas Vinciguerra. "I knew that I had to try and win as quickly and as simply as possible, and I managed to do just that."
He was not alone.
The top half of the draw, which includes the world number one and top seed Lleyton Hewitt, has an abundance of star names, including the two Americans Andy Roddick and James Blake and Russia's Marat Safin, last year's runner-up.
All four, like Federer, were on cruise control yesterday, none more so than Hewitt, who defeated fellow Australian Todd Larkham 6-1, 6-0, 6-1 in the final match of the day under floodlights.
Five years ago Larkham, then 22, beat Hewitt, 16, in a Challenger event at Dendy Park club, a bayside suburb of Melbourne. Larkham, a qualifier here, has had only one other occasion to compare with this second meeting with Hewitt: playing Pete Sampras in the US Open at the opening of the Arthur Ashe Stadium in 1996.
"I was way too nervous then," he admitted, and the same was true this time.
Larkham, ranked 234 places lower than Hewitt, had watched his opponent's five-set first-round match against Magnus Larsson of Sweden from the doctor's surgery, attached to a drip to rectify the dehydration and cramps that arose from beating Cecil Mamiit of the US in four sets. Since 1998 Larkham has had a serious shoulder injury; it led to a 20-month break, and he had to call for the trainer yesterday.
"It's always nice to have an easy match after a tough one," said Hewitt. "You put in your work before a grand slam starts and you have to be prepared to play seven best-of- five-set matches, but I felt like I bounced back really well. I felt hungry, I felt eager, and I felt quick on my feet."
Hewitt next plays Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic, ranked 69th, who in his second-round match defeated Brazil's Gustavo Kuerten, the three-time French Open champion, over five sets.
A continuous stream of praise can go to a teenager's head, so it is just as well that Belgium's Kim Clijsters, the 19-year-old girlfriend of Hewitt, is one of the most balanced and bright young women on the circuit. She is also playing wonderfully well, having won four of her past five tournaments and notched up 23 victories in her past 25 matches. But, sensibly, she refuses to be drawn into comparisons with the Williams sisters, Serena and Venus.
Yesterday Hewitt told the crowd in the Rod Laver Arena that he believed Clijsters had every chance of winning the title, especially "having beaten both the Williams in Los Angeles" in the end-of-season WTA Championships last year. He may be right, and what a weekend it would be if he added the men's crown.
Earlier Clijsters, the fourth seed, had underlined her prowess with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Hungary's Petra Mandula in a second-round match which took only 33 minutes, a time only Steffi Graf had bettered - by one minute - in a grand slam.
Having inherited the powerful legs of her footballer father Leo and the suppleness of her gymnast mother Els, she could scarcely be better equipped genetically.
"You know I'm very happy to have my type of legs, especially to play sport," she said. "Maybe not for modelling, but to play tennis you have to run a lot of balls down and for that I think my legs are very good."
Speed is an attribute she shares with Hewitt. "When Lleyton won the US Open title and then Wimbledon, I felt like I won them as well," she said. "That's what really made me realise how much it means for a tennis player to win those big events."
Serena Williams, whom Clijsters may meet in the semi- finals, was back to her best with a 6-4, 6-0 win over another Belgian, Els Callens, but Monica Seles, the sixth seed and four-time champion here, was beaten 6-7, 7-5, 6-3 by Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic, aged 20 and ranked 113th in the world.
Seles, in seven visits to the Australian Open dating back to 1991, had never failed to get beyond the last 16, but on this occasion she rolled over her left ankle early in the first set and needed lengthy treatment.
"I was in bad pain but I just tried to hang in and tough it out," she said.
"But it was not to be."
