Alicia Molik will aim to become the third Australian into the second week of the Australian Open, hoping to join Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis at the business end of the year's opening tennis Grand Slam.

Hewitt and Philippoussis booked Monday action with impressive third round straight sets wins.

To join them in week two of the tournament, Molik must overcome fourth seed Amelie Mauresmo in the round of 16 at Melbourne Park.

It will be a tough ask, with Frenchwoman Mauresmo as impressive as any player in the tournament so far, dropping just six games en route to the fourth round.

Molik though has developed a power game which she believes will help her break into the world's elite in 2004, unveiling it to great effect so far in wins over German Angelika Bachmann, 15th seed Daniela Hantuchova and Luxembourg's Claudine Schaul.

Molik opens proceedings on centre court, with men's and women's top seeds Andy Roddick and Justine Henin-Hardenne and men's fourth seed Andre Agassi also in action in fourth round matches.

Roddick plays on Rod Laver Arena against 16th seed Sjeng Schalken on the Netherlands, whom the American beat on his way to winning the US Open last year.

Henin-Hardenne takes on unseeded Italian Mara Santangelo, while Agassi faces an intriguing match-up against Thailand's 13th seed Paradorn Srichaphan.

Srichaphan has been wowing the large Asian contingent cheering his every move at this tournament, with the Thai beating Agassi in their only encounter at Wimbledon in 2002.

In other matches, women's fifth seed Lindsay Davenport plays Russian 11th seed Vera Zvonareva and Russian Marat Safin takes on American Hopman Cup hero James Blake.

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP