Roddick, Hewitt Resume Federer Chase at Australian Open

The No. 2-seeded Roddick overpowered yet another left-handed opponent in No. 32-seeded Jurgen "Tuna" Melzer of Austria 6-2, 6-2, 7-5, with the American's draw looking even rosier in the round of 16 against unseeded, unheralded, and unassuming German Philipp Kohlschreiber.

"It's good that it seemed easy to you guys," Roddick said to the assembled media after punishing the Tuna Melt. "It doesn't seem easy to me when you're out there. You're always thinking kind of that it can slip away or all it takes is one service game and maybe you're in a fourth set. That wasn't really my mindset."

The No. 3-seeded Hewitt ground down No. 25 seed Juan Ignacio Chela 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in a match marred by bad blood and a spitting incident.

The tension came to a head in the fourth set when Chela, who had enough of Hewitt's "C'mon!"s and "vicht" hand gestures, stared down the Aussie after a few points then appeared to go headhunting during the next rally.

Hewitt screamed out another "C'mon!" while walking to the chair after breaking to go up 3-2, then appeared to say something to Chela before the Argentine spat at Hewitt.

"He spat in my direction," Hewitt said during his post-match conference. "He apologized at the net after the match, and I accepted his apology. I don't think it's the right thing, no. But it's unfortunate because we're having a good dogfight match out there. We're both competitive blokes out there. We were going for it."

Chela denied spitting at Hewitt.

"I was spitting but not in Lleyton's direction," Chela said after the match. "Lleyton thought it was at him and I apologized for that at the end of the match. But I was not spitting at Lleyton."

Chela did admit Hewitt's screaming and gesturing were getting to him during the match.

"There was one mistake I made and Lleyton made his sign and I was a bit upset about that because the match was very tense," Chela said.

In other seeded play, (6) Guillermo "El Fragile" Coria crushed the confidence-challenged (31) Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, (26) Nikolay Davydenko upset the fire-less (7) Tim Henman 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, (9) David Nalbandian weathered the forehand storm of (23) Fernando "Gonzo" Gonzalez 6-7(3), 7-5, 6-2, 6-3, and sleeper-pick (12) Guillermo Canas rolled unseeded Czech Radek Stepanek 6-1, 6-2, 6-2.

"I think I heard (fellow Brit Elena) Baltacha say she got her ass kicked yesterday, and unfortunately I fall into the same bracket," Henman said. "If you make unforced errors, you're obviously going to lose the point. But, you know, there were times when I was coming in on some, you know, really good balls, I was serving some serves in the right place, and he came up with the, you know, came up with the answers."

Un-seeds advancing Saturday were Spain's Rafael "The Prodigy" Nadal (d. American Bobby Reynolds "Wrap" 6-1, 6-1, 6-3), and the German surprise Kohlschreiber (d. Lisnard 7-5, 6-3, 6-2).

Nadal, at 18 the youngest remaining player on the men's side, achieved a career-best result in a slam Saturday by reaching the round of 16. Nadal likes his chances in the next round against Hewitt if he can catch the Aussie off his game.

"Last year I lost against him here, and I play in Australia and in Toronto," Nadal said. "Here I lost 7-6, 7-6, 6-3. And in Toronto I lost 6-1 for me, 6-4 for him, and 6-3 for him, no? It's very, very difficult match, hard. But I am playing good. I am in the fourth round. Is my best result in one Grand Slam. I have confidence with this match, no? I want play very good match. If I play very good match and Hewitt not his best match, I think I have one chance."

In men's doubles the No. 2-seeded Bryan brothers crushed Roko Karanusic/Uros Vico 6-0, 6-2, while the draw lost three more seeds Saturday in Aussies (8) Wayne Arthurs/Paul Hanley (l. to Berdych/Pavel), (9) Cyril Suk/Pavel Vizner (l. to Fisher/Parrott), and waffles (12) Xavier "X-Man" Malisse/Olivier "The Roach" Rochus (l. to Moodie/Zimonjic).

On Sunday's schedule in Melbourne are (1) Federer vs. Marcos "Bombs Over" Baghdatis (Fed leads meetings 1-0), (11) Joachim "The Jackhammer" Johansson vs. (8) Agassi (first meeting), Israel's (13) Erlich/Ram vs. (2) Bryan brothers, (4) Safin vs. Olivier "The Roach" Rochus (Safin leads 3-1), (3) Bhupathi/Woodbridge vs. unseeded Spaniards Al Costa/The Prodigy, and (20) Dominik "The Dominator" Hrbaty vs. (30) Thomas "Tommy the J." Johansson (Dominator leads 5-2, including the last five meetings).