LONDON (AFP) - Lleyton Hewitt rolled back the years as the Australian routed Bulgarian 10th seed Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-3 in the second round at Queen's Club on Wednesday.

Hewitt is a four-time champion at the pre-Wimbledon warm-up event, but thoughts of a record fifth crown were some way from the former world No.1's thoughts when he arrived in west London at the start of the week.

The 32-year-old is well into the twilight of his career and his lowly 82nd position in the world rankings reflects that diminished status.

Hewitt's first-round defeat at the French Open, when he squandered a two-set lead against Gilles Simon, was his fourth successive loss, raising once again the possibility that he would retire soon.

But the former Wimbledon champion has always thrived on London's grass courts and, after grinding out a hard-fought first round win over Michael Russell, he produced one of his best performances of 2013 to brush aside the highly-regarded Dimitrov.

World No. 28 Dimitrov, nicknamed Baby Fed after being compared to Roger Federer when he first emerged onto the ATP Tour, looked out of sorts for much of the match and Hewitt made him pay.