Lleyton Hewitt was made to fight all the way in a five-set thriller before eventually defeating American Taylor Dent.

The match provided a thrilling end to a day in which all of the other big names had little trouble progressing.

On the women's side, Lindsay Davenport, Venus Williams, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, Nathalie Tauziat and Amanda Coetzer all came through in straight sets.

On the men's side, Pat Rafter needed four sets to beat Slava Dosedel, as did Yevgeny Kafelnikov against Britain's Arvind Parmar, but Thomas Enqvist, Sebastien Grosjean and Fabrice Santoro had straight forward wins.

Andre Agassi completed the set by easing past Britain's Jamie Delgado to leave Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski as the only home players left in the tournament.

Centre Court hoodoo

But Hewitt did not find things as easy as the other seeds.

The biggest shock of the men's competition awaited the Centre Court crowd as the unfancied Dent raced into a 5-0 lead in the first set and eventually claimed the opener 6-1.

Things only got worse for Hewitt when he was broken in his first service game of the second set, but he broke back immediately before a rain delay.

Hewitt, who had never before won on Wimbledon's Centre Court, then found his form and took the second and third sets 7-5 6-3.

He had two match points when he served for the match at 6-5 in the fourth set, but Dent broke back and went on to take the set on a tie-break.

So the match was set for a grandstand finish.

But Hewitt demonstrated his steely nerve as he broke Dent early in the decider and went on to take the set 6-3 for a superb win in front of a packed Centre Court.