Tennis Australian Open Championships:The stature of Serbia's 20-year-old Novak Djokovic, the world number three, is being further enhanced at this year's Australian Open. He has yet to drop a set on his way to the last eight and rarely gave the 15,000 in the Rod Laver Arena a semblance of hope that their own Lleyton Hewitt might conjure up a victory against the odds.
Djokovic won 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 and, even if Hewitt had not been kept on court until 4.34am on Sunday in his previous match against Marcos Baghdatis, he would probably have fared little better. This was the new generation sweeping away the old, even though Hewitt is only 26.
Hewitt was a phenomenon, playing his first Australian Open at 15 and winning the first of his two majors, the US Open, when he was Djokovic's age.
He has always dearly wanted to win his home championship and lost in the final three years ago to Russia's Marat Safin. Now he will not. Time moves on and Hewitt, no longer in the world's top 20, has been left behind.
"The best set of wheels in the world" was how Pete Sampras once described Hewitt's game of electric counter-attack. Now some of those wheels have fallen off, and Australian men's tennis looks set for some lean years.
Djokovic had a wonderful 2007, reaching the semi-finals at the French Open and Wimbledon and then making his first major final, at the US Open, pushing Roger Federer hard before the Swiss claimed his 12th grand slam title.
The man Djokovic defeated to reach that final was Spain's David Ferrer and the two will lock rackets again tomorrow for the chance of a likely semi-final against the world number one.
An ill-judged attempted drop shot in the second set tie-break by Tomas Berdych cost him the chance of levelling his fourth-round match against Federer, who will now play James Blake of the US.
The Czech is best remembered for defeating Federer in the early stages of the 2004 Athens Olympics, although he has lost all their five meetings since.
"Tomas is always a dangerous player and thank God he didn't win that second set," said Federer, who won 6-4, 7-6, 6-3.
After his five-set victory over Janko Tipsarevic on Saturday Federer again displayed uncharacteristic waywardness, as if his mind was still not entirely focused. Whether Blake will be able to unearth underlying weaknesses seems, at first glance, unlikely.
Federer holds a 7-0 head-to-head advantage over the New Yorker with an English mother, and Blake has won only one set against him.
"But honestly I felt good and I am looking forward to seeing how I feel in the next match again." But Federer is taking nothing for granted against Blake, despite his previous dominance against the New Yorker.
"He has improved a lot the last couple of years," Federer said of the number 12 seed.
The stomach complaint the Swiss suffered just prior to the tournament does not appear to have had any lasting effect, and his struggles against Tipsarevic may have been mental as much as anything.
"I think that could be because he has set the bar so high," said Blake.
"I know that once he gets deep into a slam his mind is thinking about winning it and nearer to that Sampras record, and he isn't going to give me anything for free."
Guardian Service
