Fuente: © Australian Open
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AUSTRALIAN OPEN: Hewitt Aims for Federer Again

/noticias.info/ by Scott Spits
Monday, 16 January, 2006


Lleyton Hewitt welcomes the prospect of a semi-final against world No.1 Roger Federer on his home turf at Australian Open 2006, knowing a victory over his adversary would provide him with more satisfaction should he go on to secure the elusive championship.

But the world No.4 Australian wasn't getting too far ahead of himself, fully aware of the pitfalls when striving to advance to the second week of any Grand Slam tournament.

The 24-year-old battled his way through a gruelling Australian Open campaign last year, winning six tough matches before succumbing to Russian Marat Safin in four sets in the men's final.

At the start of last year's tournament, Hewitt knew he was drawn to face the Swiss champion in the final - a match-up which never eventuated thanks to Safin's victory over Federer in the semis. This year Hewitt has been drawn on the same side as Federer.

"I seem to get on that half quite a bit," Hewitt told Channel Seven's Talking Tennis on the eve of the 2006 tournament.

"There's so many tough matches though. It's like last year, everyone said 'you're not on the same half as Federer'. But I didn't have to worry about Federer as it turned out."

"I had seven very worthy opponents to try and win the tournament against last year."

Indeed he did. Hewitt had to overcome a persistent hip flexor injury and a gruelling draw - featuring the likes of James Blake, Juan Ignacio Chela, Rafael Nadal and David Nalbandian - just to get to the business end of the tournament.

Now he warmly embraces a potential clash against Federer in the final four.

"Roger's human. He's like everyone else. If I do get a crack at him, probably in the Friday night of the semi-finals in a week-and-a-half's time, I'd be jumping out of my skin to go out and play him in Australia again," Hewitt said.

"But it's never going to be easy and you don't expect easy matches come semi-finals time anyway. It would be more satisfying probably to beat Roger."

That's not surprising. Federer holds an 11-7 record against Hewitt, including wins in each of their past nine Tour encounters. Hewitt has been eliminated from his past seven Grand Slam events by the eventual champion. On five of those occasions his opponent was the Swiss master.

Hewitt, a two-time Grand Slam champion (the last coming at Wimbledon in 2002) said his injury last year - which made his participation in the tournament a match-by-match proposition - may have helped his progress, allowing him to simply focus on his opponent at hand.

"The first week's a tough one because you can never win a Grand Slam in the first week but you can always lose it. It's a matter of just going out there and getting the job done more than anything," Hewitt said.

"I think last year I had a bit of a hip flexor injury coming into the tournament and that made me not lose sight of the big picture and I was focusing on who I just had to play.

"Twelve months ago everyone thought Nadal in a fourth round - 'you know, it's not that tough' - (as) things turn out, he's not a bad player!"

"You really have to look at the big picture and see that there's no easy matches out there. Right at the moment I'm worried about Robin Vik (his Czech first-round opponent)."

"I've never played him before. He's ranked 50-odd for a reason. There's not too many slouchers in the top 50 these days."

Regardless, Hewitt is delighted to be back in Australia and playing in front of his favourite crowd.

"There's not too many better stages to play any tennis tournaments in than Rod Laver Arena," the Australian said of his special connection to Melbourne Park.

"Obviously growing up and coming to the tennis centre for so many years as a kid, it was always a dream to be in that position. I saw Pat Cash lose that final to Wilander 8-6 in the fifth (set) years ago. It was a dream to be in that position (myself) last year." notas_de_prensa_archivo