Hewitt and Henman lead big-name exodus

Having arrived in the world along with open tennis in 1968, Francisco Clavet is in his last season but not on his last legs. Whatever befalls the 34-year-old Spanish left-hander during the rest of the year, he will have fond memories of defeating Lleyton Hewitt, the Wimbledon champion and world No 1, in front of a cheering Stadium Court crowd under floodlights at the Nasdaq-100 Open.

Top players are always at risk against the lowly ranked if their own level of performance drops at the same time as their opponent raises his game. In this case, Hewitt was debilitated by food poisoning while Clavet, a qualifier ranked No 178, was able to go for his mixture of groundstrokes in impressive style to win, 6-4 6-4.

Stomach ailments are taking a toll. Serena Williams, the women's world No 1, almost withdrew from her opener against Italy's Francesca Schiavone. "I don't know what it was, but the doctor had a fancy way of saying food poisoning," Williams said after overcoming her opponent 7-5 6-1. "The main goal was just to get through the day."

Clavet, who was ranked as high as No 18 in 1992, has had a moderate career sprinkled with eight ATP Tour titles and highlighted by notable victories against leading players, including Andre Agassi. "Maybe the win against Agassi was bigger, because he has more Grand Slam titles," the Spaniard said, "but I think Hewitt, with the years, is going to become one of the biggest players of the world."

Not that Clavet intends to watch that happen, except on television or perhaps in the stands as a coach. "For me this is an extra year," he said. "It's like a gift. But I won't change my mind about retiring."

Hewitt, unbeaten in his previous 12 matches, and with titles from Scottsdale and Indian Wells, was "pissed off" after losing. "[Clavet] played as well as he could," he said, "but I was still feeling sick and I had a lot of chances to win, even though I played so bad."

The 22-year-old Australian will now prepare for his country's Davis Cup quarter-final in Sweden and finalise his clay-court season schedule leading up to the French Open. "I know I'm playing Barcelona," Hewitt said. "After that, I'm not really sure."

Given his antipathy towards the ATP, who fined him for refusing to do an on-court interview with ESPN in Cincinnati in August last year, it will be interesting to see if the Monte Carlo Open, whose grounds are adjacent to the ATP's European headquarters, is included in his programme. "Probably not," he said.

Tim Henman will be going to Monte Carlo next month, hoping to play enough matches to build the confidence missing from his game since his comeback after surgery to his right shoulder. The British No 1, who has only won one of his last five matches, was disappointed with his display in losing to the sharper Nicolas Escudé, of France, 6-3 6-4 in his opening match here on Friday.

"I sat down disconsolately in the locker room," Henman said, "and refected on the two sets of pretty ordinary tennis I played and tried to pick out any positives. I came round to the thought that, 'Well, my shoulder is pretty good'. Until then it hadn't even crossed my mind that I'd been playing back from an injury."