A decidedly rusty Lleyton Hewitt suffered a surprise hometown reverse to little-known German Philipp Kohlschreiber at the Adelaide International.

Top seed Hewitt lost the first and third sets of an uneven encounter to drop out 6-3 0-6 7-5 at Memorial Drive and put a worrying dent in his Australian Open build-up.

There will be no Australians in the quarter-finals after Mark Philippoussis earlier slipped to a three-set defeat against second-seeded Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty.

Before his match, Hewitt had noted Kohlschreiber's "sweet" backhand, glimpsed during the German's first-round win over young Australian Chris Guccione, and it was working sweetly indeed during the first set.

Kohlschreiber only entered the tournament due to the late withdrawal of American Paul Goldstein, but swept to an early 3-0 lead and closed it out 6-3 after holding set points at 5-2 on Hewitt's serve.

Presumably embarrassed by the scoreline with the biggest crowd of the tournament looking on, Hewitt crunched through the second set in 26 minutes.

The third was a tight scrape, Kohlschreiber holding a break until Hewitt cornered his less experienced counterpart when he served for the match.

Most assumed that would be the end of it, but Hewitt delivered a limp service game at 5-5, including a disastrous double-fault on break point, to give Kohlschreiber another shot at victory.

A few strong serves later and it was all over, 86th-ranked Kohlschreiber basking in what was comfortably the biggest win of his career.

Philippoussis insisted he was still on course to peak at the Australian Open despite subsiding to a 3-6 6-4 6-1 loss against the doughty Hrbaty.

Short on match practice but striking the ball cleanly, Philippoussis looked capable of victory before second-set lapses on serve allowed Hrbaty the breathing space to win.

Asked about his Open preparations, Philippoussis said he was on the right path.

"It can only get better and things can't happen overnight, the only thing I can do is just keep working hard and I know it's going to happen," he said.

"It's not like I've got to be happy with taking Hrbaty to three sets because I know what I'm capable of doing and I let that match get away from me. There's no need to get down, and I'll move on towards the Australian Open."

In the day's first match, sixth seeded Czech Tomas Berdych set up a quarter-final meeting with Kohlschreiber by ousting Scotsman Andrew Murray 7-6 (7-2) 4-6 6-1.

Both players were happy with their early season form, Murray saying he had made a 50 per cent improvement on his previous match and Berdych looking forward to the quarter finals.

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