Lleyton Hewitt's defence of his Wimbledon title lasted less than two and a half hours at the hands of giant Croatian qualifier Ivo Karlovic.

But Andy Roddick, one of the leading pretenders to Hewitt's crown, blazed into the second round, where he will go head to head with Britain's Greg Rusedski in a battle of the two fastest servers on the men's circuit.

In one of the biggest opening day shocks ever seen at the All England club, Karlovic came back from a disastrous opening set to win his first ever Grand Slam match 1-6 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 6-4 in 2hr 24min.

"In the first set I was completely scared," Karlovic admitted afterwards. "But afterwards I thought I could beat him, I thought I could play better and I began to believe in myself in the third set.

"I enjoyed it."

The 2.08-metre tall qualifier revealed that he had watched Hewitt play at Queen's in the run-up to Wimbledon and been encouraged by what he had seen.

"I saw him playing last week and he didn't play anything special."

The defeat made Hewitt only the second men's champion since the tournament's inception in 1877 to bow out in the first round, emulating the unfortunate Manolo Santana who fell to American Charlie Passarell in the first round in 1967.

But there were no excuses from the Australian, who was undone by uncharacteristic lapses on the big points. Presented with 13 break points, he managed to claim only three in the match.

"I was seeing the ball well. I could have been 6-1, 4-0 up. But I just didn't take my chances," he admitted.

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