With Lleyton Hewitt, it's rarely an easy ride. Only round one of the Australian Open, a match expected to be won by the Australian, and he necessitates a marathon, a melodrama, a mini epic.
Although ranked 181 in the world, Hewitt's vast Grand Slam experience should have been far too much for young German Stebe, whose parents were undecided on a name for their son so went with both and called him Cedrik-Marcel, putting paid to chances of a tease free run at school.
The 83rd ranked player initially matched it with Hewitt, and some of the ground strokes were OK, if not to the standard that the top seeds had displayed so far. The pair struggled to 4-4 before Lleyton struck an unkind blow and broke the German serve. No longer the reliable closer out of sets, Hewitt stuck to his current formula and failed to serve out this one. However since he felt like giving it another try, Stebe obliged by dropping his serve again. This consistent clumsiness allowed Lleyton to improve upon his last attempt and the set was his 7-5.
And for those craving an early night, the boys were of tremendous assistance taking a fleeting 64 minutes to finalise first set niceties.
Just to quicken things up C-M and LH treated us to a wonderful half hour of gruelling painful tennis in the second set, which served to confirm a 2-1 lead for Stebe. Lleyton these days cannot rely on his once damaging court movement to sufficiently defy opposition and is left to moving towards the net more frequently. Trouble is the shots he comes in behind are often average in quality enabling time and space for others to simply pass him and make him look foolish at the net. That is why Stebe racked up plenty of winners in set 2 - to neutralise that positive he generously hit enough wayward balls to keep Lleyton breathing.
Using his wealth of experience, Hewitt broke once more and consolidated the break through to the set's conclusion 6-4. Now 2 sets up and over 2 hours spent on the exercise, we began counting down the minutes till Serena would grace us with her presence. (now there is a first - I used grace and Serena in the one sentence!)
Usually one for repetition and boring the hell out of his opponents Lleyton pulled a surprise when in the third set he dropped behind a break of serve for the first time in the match. The doubters happily jumped to the conclusion that this would be Hewitt's conclusion. 4-2 became 5-2 and C-M Stebe looked by far the best that he had for the match contrasting Lleyton's now bedraggled persona.
Above all else - well above a few things at least - Hewitt's immediate desire was to have first serve in the fourth set should one be called upon. The call was made once Cedrik-Marcel had put the final touches on the third set in which he played some excellent all court - OK some of the court - tennis to frustrate and anger the little Aussie battler. 6-3 and 2.75 hours had ticked over.
Hewitt's battle grew more intense as he dropped serve in the opening game of the fourth set, showing all the clumsiness that his rival had when he dropped his earlier in the night. The doomsayers now had joined the doubters on the sidelines, delighted that their word appeared to be coming to fruition.
The Hewitt juggernaut, or these days sedan and trailer, ran into roadworks set up by Stebe, and 4 of the next 5 games were claimed by the German Embassy. At 1-5 and a fifth set looming, Lleyton gathered all the assistance he could to ensure his service was held. Now after the set had been served out by Stebe Lleyton could deliver first in the last. Here endeth the script as written by the tournament organisers. Hewitt decided to make the rest up as he went along.
So the Stebe serve was shattered not once but twice as he served for the match unsuccessfully. Hewitt's resolve had resurfaced, and at 5-5, precarious arrived on the scene as the relevant word of the hour for Cedrik-Marcel. Lleyton pressed home his advantage to complete 6 games on the trot for a 7-5 6-4 3-6 7-5 win which only required 4 hours of our viewing time.
No comments:
Post a Comment