By Piers Newbery BBC Sport Online at Wimbledon

As Tim Henman was dropping serve in the first set of his match with Michel Kratochvil, a fellow Briton was showing him the way forward out on Court Four.

Alex Bogdanovic began his challenge for the junior Wimbledon title by demolishing Russia's Artem Sitak 6-0 6-0 in under 40 minutes.

And despite the obvious nerves felt by his opponent, Britain's leading junior showed exactly why he is so highly rated.

The 6ft 1in 18-year-old is number 23 in the world junior rankings, but has a number of impressive results behind him.

He put up good performances in defeat when handed wildcards to the senior events at Queen's and last week at Wimbledon.

Last year he finished runner-up in the National Championships to Lee Childs, and won the Uruguay Bowl as he rose 100 places in the junior rankings.

Blustery conditions

With a serve reminiscent of Goran Ivanisevic, he is strong on both the backhand and forehand sides, and has a good touch at the net.

Admittedly, if there are any weaknesses to Bogdanovic's game, Sitak was not about to expose them.

Bogdanovic won the junior title at Queen's

In cold, blustery conditions the Russian looked nervous during the warm-up as ninth seed Bogdanovic fired down some impressive looseners on serve.

In the shadow of Centre Court, most people around Court Four tend to be on the way to or from somewhere else in the All England Club.

As the match began there was plenty of seating available on the courtside benches and most of the spectators were wearing ground passes around their necks.

Clearly the match was of more interest to journalists and Bogdanovic's fellow junior competitors than most of the public.

Many people were distracted by the large scoreboards carrying news of Henman and Hewitt's progress, but Bogdanovic soon grabbed their attention.

False dawn

The left-hander started as he would go on, with an ace down the middle, and Sitak was barely able to get his racquet on the ball in the opening exchanges.

But just as encouraging from a British point of view was Bogdanovic's clinical work from the baseline, and anything short was dispatched.

That Bogdanovic made short work of Sitak is no surprise, given that he received a wildcard into the men's singles last week and took a set off 16th seed Nicolas Escude.

And the first round of the boy's singles quickly proved to be a mismatch as Sitak repeatedly double-faulted, and only made game-point in the 11th game.

That proved to be a false dawn and the Russian was soon sitting, head in hands, contemplating an embarrassing defeat.

A few fellow juniors gathered to watch the final points and had nothing but sympathy for Sitak, possibly because they know they could soon be in line for the same treatment.