RoastedLinuxHewitt willing to fight another day
January 20th 2009 23:09
Perhaps it was not quite the ending Australians all over would have hoped for, but Lleyton Hewitt against Fernando Gonzalez was at least a reminder of why tennis in general - and Australian tennis in particular - will miss the old campaigner when he eventually decides to stop battling and hangs up his rackets for good.
‘Old’ is something of a relative term, for Hewitt is only 27, but he has more miles on the clock than a rusty ute and was playing his 13th Australian Open, having become the youngest qualifier in the history of the tournament when he first made the main draw as a 15-year-old.
In the intervening years, Hewitt has proved himself one of the most obstinate competitors that the men’s game has ever seen as well as one of the most accomplished Australian tennis players of the Open era.
Like Patrick Rafter before him, Hewitt won two Grand Slam titles (the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon), and ended the 2000 and 2001 seasons ranked world No.1.
Given the nature of his energy-sapping game, it is not surprising that the last few years have seen him struggle with a slew of niggling injuries.
The hip problems which forced him under the surgeon’s knife have been by far the most serious, but it is a sign of Hewitt’s determination to continue with his career that he opted to undergo the operation at all.
“I really didn't have that much time to think about the surgery, to tell you the truth. As soon as I flew back from Beijing, I landed that morning, then that afternoon I was under the knife.
"If I was going to retire, then I wouldn't have had the surgery done,” said Hewitt. “It wasn't something that was going to affect me in everyday life for the rest of my life. It was something that, if I want to still play tennis, then it had to be done.”
Hewitt’s defeat means that he is likely to drop out of the world’s top 100 but, quite rightly, he is more concerned with making a successful recovery from surgery and playing his best tennis than totting up points.
He was, predictably, disappointed to have gone out of his home Grand Slam in the first round, but he sounded positive about the rest of this season - and that can only be regarded as good news.
“It won't be that tough. I'm only playing a couple of small tournaments. I’ve got Davis Cup and a couple of Masters Series in America. Yeah, I really don't have any points to defend, apart from a fourth round at Wimbledon, for the whole year. I can't say I'm too worried about points and rankings right at the moment,” he said.
As a legacy of the hip problems, Hewitt is still feeling some weakness in his left leg, and so his serve lacked its usual explosiveness against Gonzalez.
That, coupled with a dearth of matches, left him ill-equipped to cope with a former finalist and the tournament’s 13th seed.
“You go out there and you try and beat whoever you're up against. I'll probably look back at it in a couple of days' time and look at where I could have improved and whatever.
"But, yeah, in hindsight, when you haven't had the matches, haven't played five sets for quite a while, you're always going to be fighting it a little bit,” said Hewitt.
“In terms of that then, I think it's a good springboard for the rest of the year. I would have still liked to have gone a bit further in the tournament.”
The hunger is still there in Hewitt, and that is to be celebrated. Tennis’s grittiest battler will fight another day.
| 67 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
