Rusedski sets up battle with Roddick

With the bottom half of the draw ripped apart, Greg Rusedski will spend the whole of today trying not to think any further than tomorrow's third-round match against Andy Roddick.

Rusedski has experienced similar situations before and knows well enough the importance of keeping his mind utterly focused. One step at a time, but with Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Marat Safin all gone this will be mightily difficult.

Rusedski blew up another serving storm on No1 court for 2 sets of near-impeccable tennis. But just when he seemed poised to win in three sets the ground suddenly shifted from beneath his feet. From a 5-3 advantage in the third, and a 40-0 lead on the serve of Lee Hyung-taik, he allowed the 26-year-old South Korean an unexpected opening, which he took, before Rusedski finally prevailed 6-1, 6-4, 5-7, 6-2.

Rusedski cannot afford to let this happen against Roddick. Last year both were beaten by the eventual champion Goran Ivanisevic, Roddick in the third round, the furthest the 19-year-old American has reached at Wimbledon, and Rusedski in the fourth. It will be a match of mighty serves, although Roddick's ability to get more returns back may be crucial.

Roddick, who has never played Rusedski, reached the last 32 yesterday with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 victory over the Spaniard Alberto Martin.

Initially Lee's game was dismantled by Rusedski's huge serving, which bore down on the Korean like a ton of bricks. Lee is a player of some artistry and even though he was playing on grass he tried increasingly despairingly to cling on to the concept that tennis was about rallies. He did his level best to stop the flow of aces and service winners, but to little avail. Rusedski was omnipotent.

Impotence was the word that best summed up Lee's attempts to turn this match around until Rusedski's slightly alarming glitch. After previously beating Andrei Stoliarov 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 4-6 , 6-2, his first victory at Wimbledon, Lee might have supposed he had got the hang of things on grass. After all, he reached the quarter-finals at Queen's, taking a set of Tim Henman. But this was something entirely different.

Lee clung to the belief that nobody could serve like this over an extended period, and that if he kept trying to return the ball he would ultimately achieve some sort of success. He had just about given up when Rusedski suddenly suffered the yips and began to bury his serve in the net. Lee, like a man reprieved from the hangman's cell, breathed sweet air, and grasped the third set with alacrity.

The crowd was hushed. Surely Rusedski could not lose now? But the signs were more than a little ominous. As if sensing the growing concern Rusedski literally roared his way back in front. He shouted, he yelled, he punched the air. Suddenly he was in a fight, and all his fighting abilities came to the fore. Lee wilted and Rusedski pressed.

"Give him an inch and he will take a long mile," said Rusedski, who despite dropping the third set said he never felt in danger of losing and was pleased with the way he responded to his setback.

Barry Cowan is probably destined to be remembered as the man who almost beat Pete Sampras. That was last year, and since then he has made no progress whatsoever. His first-round victory over Hungary's Attila Savolt was laudable in its small way but yesterday's 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 defeat by Nicolas Lapentti summed up the true state of Cowan's game, and why he is not even in the world's top 250.

Victory over Lapentti, the 22nd seed, might have given Cowan the base for progress over the next year, but he will be 28 in August and may be lucky to get another wild card. On this form he does not deserve one. Grass is his natural surface, but in the last year he has achieved very little.

It may be splendid for British men running around in the shadow of Henman and Rusedski to step on to the Wimbledon stage, but it is what they do for the rest of the year that matters. Cowan, Jamie Delgado and Arvind Parmar have surely had their last chance of a free entry and should be made to qualify for Wimbledon next year unless they build up their rankings, as Martin Lee, Britain's No3, has managed through determination and hard work.