On either side of the court was a young man who has commanded his own share of attention for heartthrob good looks.

American Jan-Michael Gambill, who turned 23 three weeks ago, was among those featured in People magazine's recent "50 Most Beautiful People" issue.

Jan-Michael Gambill celebrates downing Lleyton Hewitt in straight sets on Tuesday.(AP)

Australia's Lleyton Hewitt is gaining a reputation as a tennis matinee idol, the player known for wearing the baseball cap backward over his long pony tail.

Hewitt also is gaining a reputation as one of the best talents in tennis. That's what made his loss to Gambill the top news of Day 2 at Wimbledon.

It wasn't just a first-round loss, but a straight-sets put-away.

Gambill won this match 6-3, 6-2, 7-5. He rallied in the third set from being down a break to Hewitt, one of the more energetic forces on the ATP Tour and the No. 7 seed at Wimbledon.

If we assume Hewitt had just held on and served out the third set, the momentum of the match could have swung considerably.

Hewitt can run opponents ragged. Moreover, it was hard not to be impressed by his most recent achievement on grass, a defeat of Pete Sampras at the Queen's Club in London last weekend.

Impressive as it was, the result did nothing to intimidate Gambill. Last year, he won his first career ATP Tour title.

But despite the four years' seniority he has on Hewitt, Gambill has been well behind him.

This time, Gambill paid no attention to his career 7-11 record in Grand Slam tournaments and simply proceeded with confidence and poise.

"What this match proves to me is that I can play against the top players," Gambill said during his post-match press conference.

Interestingly, the victory put Gambill in line to play two other products of American tennis should he reach the third round -- the winner of the second-round match between fiery veteran Jeff Tarango and Princeton graduate Paul Goldstein of suburban Washington.

The USTA will be hard-pressed to match the rarefied era when Sampras, Michael Chang, Andre Agassi and the recently retired Jim Courier all rose to prominence around the same time.

Thus, there is no small celebration involved in a victory like Gambill's. Should his ride end in the second round, when he meets 27-year-old Frenchman Fabrice Santoro, the disappointment undoubtedly will be substantial.

Still, the satisfaction of such a significant first-round accomplishment can't be taken away.

Hewitt, after all, was a strong favorite to be among the few players who could make it difficult for Sampras to defend what would be Sampras' fourth consecutive Wimbledon singles title.

"I know he's a fiery player. I know how he's going to play," Gambill said in England. "He's been great this whole year. He's just proved time and time again how fierce and tough a competitor he is.

"That's the way I want to be out there. This match means a lot for me confidence-wise."

This should be especially true given the way Gambill won the third set. To do it, he had to weather three set points.

He also had to defend two break points, serving for the match at 6-5, points that would have pushed the set into a tiebreak and potentially given Hewitt the glimmer of hope for a comeback.

For the United States, it is up to Sampras and Agassi to make the news deep into the tournament.

Yet for these first two days, two relatively obscure Americans have offered the most dramatic accomplishment.

Preceding Gambill was the performance Vince Spadea turned in on Monday, an upset of local favorite Greg Rusedski. The Briton was the No. 14 seed. His loss ended Spadea's record 21-match losing streak.

If ever there were signs the golden era of Courier-Agassi-Sampras-Chang is fading, they are the sight and sound of Courier's voice in the broadcasting booth now.

But for the first two days of Wimbledon, two young Americans have alleviated -- however temporarily -- the perception of lean times in developing prominent American male tennis talent.

Lobs and volleys

• Although Hewitt's success at Queen's didn't translate to even a first-round victory, history on the women's side bodes well for players who have performed well in Wimbledon tune-ups. Since the WTA Tour was formed in 1971, 77 percent of the winners of a pre-Wimbledon grass-court tournament have reached the quarterfinals or better at Wimbledon. Eleven such players during that time duplicated their tuneup title by winning the women's singles championship. But that happened only twice in the 1990s, when Martina Navratilova did it in 1990 and Jana Novotna won in 1998.
• It should be an easy day Wednesday for Venus Williams. She faces Japan's Ay Sugiyama. Williams has won all four of their prior meetings, and only once did Sugiyama take a set. That happened during their first meeting, in 1997 at Indian Wells.