Tim Henman was left scratching his head for an answer yesterday after coming off a poor second to Pat Rafter in their Australian Open clash in Melbourne.

Rafter, seeded 12th against Henman's eighth, kept the home flag flying at the first Grand Slam of the year with a thoroughly convincing 6-2 6-3 6-3 fourth round victory.

''There's probably a lot of very good lessons to be learned from this,'' said Henman, conceding that he was outplayed virtually from first to last.

''But it won't be pretty to watch. He stamped his authority on the match and I handled the situation pretty poorly.''

It was a loss which was all the more depressing for Henman because he would not have had to face No 2 seed Marat Safin in the quarter-finals or Pete Sampras, his Wimbledon master, in the semi-finals.

Safin, the 20-year-old Russian who won the US Open last year, lost 6-2 7-6 6-4 to 14th seed Dominik Hrbaty, from Slovakia.

Sampras followed Safin on to court and after 17 wins in his previous 19 matches against fellow American Todd Martin he took the first set tie-break.

But Martin came back to win 6-7 6-3 6-4 6-4 and so went through to face defending champion Andre Agassi, who was a set and a break down before recovering to end the run of local favourite Andrew Ilie.

That defeat meant the crowd were denied Ilie's customary match-winning shirt-ripping routine. But, in a tribute to his compatriot, Rafter did it instead with a lot more difficulty.

Henman, meanwhile, must have felt like ripping up the tactics he tried against Rafter. None of them worked.

''I give Pat credit, a lot of credit, for the way he played and that was, no question, the best he's played against me. But it's much easier when you're always in front,'' said Henman.

''He was probably under the pressure for the first ten or 15 minutes. Beyond that I could never express myself with my play or my actions.

''You want to try to find all sorts of different variations to your game and to try to stem the tide and upset his rhythm, but I could never build any momentum.

''I was trying to do everything I can, but when nothing's really happening for you and you're not creating any chances then it's difficult to know where to turn.

''In big-match conditions away from home I was lacking.''

The 26-year-old has still to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final other than Wimbledon.

In contrast, Rafter has always struggled at home in the past. He won the US Open in 1997 and 1998 and reached the Wimbledon final last year, but this is the first time he has reached the last eight in Melbourne in nine attempts.

The 28-year-old hopes he can go all the way now in what he says might be his last Australian Open before he devotes himself to more charity and environmental work.

Break points in the first and third games of the opening set augured well for Henman. But he failed to take them and never earned another in the entire match.

Rafter's first chance to break came in the sixth game and he took it courtesy of a netted volley from his opponent.

More gifts were to follow. After saving two set points at 2-5 Henman double-faulted to give Rafter a third, then sent a forehand wide.

As if poor shots were not enough of a problem, Henman's judgment let him down as well. Three times he left balls which fell in and at 3-4 in the second set he double-faulted again, then missed the court with two more forehands to be broken again.

Only once in his career has Henman recovered from two sets down to win and there seemed little prospect of it happening this time with Rafter looking so sharp.

Sure enough, Henman was broken again in the seventh game of the third set and, serving to stay alive two games later, he netted another forehand to give Rafter match point then delivered his eighth double fault.

Safin's defeat was a surprise, but not a shock - Hrbaty also won in their only previous Grand Slam clash. That was in the fourth round of the 1999 French championship and the 22-year-old from Bratislava went on to reach the semi-finals.

Safin said: ''He played very good, but I played very badly. I made a lot of unforced errors and I didn't make him run.

''That's ridiculous what I did on the court. It was a little bit disaster. I didn't move him. The guy, he wouldn't sweat.''

Agassi was in his first tight spot of the week when he lost the first set tie-break 7-1 and then was broken at the start of the second by Ilie. But once he broke back immediately and gave himself a furious talking to Ilie was never a threat again.

On his colourful opponent Agassi said: ''It's much more enjoyable watching him than playing him.