Three-time defending champion Lleyton Hewitt advanced to the third round of the Queen's Club grass-court tournament with a tougher than expected 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-6 (3) win over Raemon Sluiter on Wednesday.

　　The defending Wimbledon champion, working with Roger Rasheed after Jason Stoltenberg quit earlier this week as his coach, played for the first time since losing in the third round of the French Open last month.

　　"I knew it was going to be a tough match and that's how it was," Hewitt said. "I was trying to get my footing out there and didn't feel as comfortable as, I guess, at Wimbledon last year. But I'd had a lot of matches and court time under my belt at Wimbledon."

　　In other matches in the Wimbledon warmup, sixth-seeded Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean beat Switzerland's Michel Kratochvil 6-3, 6-4, and hard-serving Swiss veteran Marc Rosset downed No 9 Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 7-5, 7-5.

　　Former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands defeated Jan Vacek of the Czech Republic 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.

　　Fifth-seeded Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands advanced to the third round when American Todd Martin pulled out before the match with a chest injury.

　　Hewitt stayed in Paris after his loss to support women's finalist Kim Clijsters, his girlfriend, instead of practicing on grass.

　　Sluiter and Hewitt held serve in the first set, forcing the tiebreak. The 63rd-ranked Sluiter, a semifinalist last year at Queens, had a set point at 6-5 but missed an easy volley and then lost the next two points.

　　Sluiter, a first-round loser in eight of his previous 11 tournaments, used an early break to win the second set.

　　Hewitt, who served 15 aces, broke Sluiter in the seventh game of the third set but was broken himself as he tried to close out the match in the 10th game.

　　Hewitt won the first six points in the tiebreak, squandered three match points, then won on a Sluiter unforced error.

　　In Halle, Germany, a home crowd didn't help Rainer Schuettler on Wednesday as the Australian Open finalist was beaten 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-3 at the Gerry Weber Open by Czech player Radek Stepanek. The German didn't come close to breaking Stepanek's serve during the match at the key grass court warmup for Wimbledon.

　　Russia's Mikhail Youzhny, still fighting health problems, also reached the quarterfinals with a 6-4, 7-5 win against Jonas Bjorkman.

　　The No 3 seed, Czech Jiri Novak, also rolled past Austrian Stefan Koubek, 6-4, 6-3.

　　Germany's Nicolas Kiefer also advanced with a 6-1, 3-6, 7-5 victory against Spaniard Feliciano Lopez.