London - Lleyton Hewitt might soon be expecting a volley from top women players after suggesting that they could not go the distance in a best-of-five-set environment after advancing in his opening match at Wimbledon Tuesday.

"I don't think a lot of them would last five sets," said the 2002 champion at the All England club.

"The training you have to do to last five sets, especially seven best-of-five-set matches, it's a lot more than three-set matches. There would obviously be question marks
(over whether) a lot of them could last that much."

Wimbledon joined the rest of the Grand Slam world by lifting women's prize money to equal that of men in 2007, even if their contests are best of three sets and many early- round matches end in one-way blowouts.(dpa)