Lleyton Hewitt, once Australia’s hope for a native champion of his country’s Grand Slam event, needed a wild card entry into the 2012 Australian Open, but once in, he made the most of it. The 30 year old Hewitt, whose signature chant is a shouting “C’mon,” displayed all of the tenaciousnes and grit that he has had throughtout his 15 year career as he faced the 23rd seed of the tournament, the hard serving 21 year old Canadian, Milos Raonic.
Hewitt started the match with a double fault. At this point his fans were saying “Oh, Oh.” They did it again as he got down 15-40 in that first game of the match. Hewitt came back to win his first service game. But fans repeated the “Oh,Oh,” when Raonic hit a booming ace on his first serve of the match. And again when Raonic won the first set, 4-6.
Hewitt, who won the U.S. Open in 2001 and Wimbledon in 2002, and was a finalist in the 2005 Australian Open, was not about to give up. He won the second set, 6-3. Then he won the third in a tie break. It was at this point that one began to sense that there was no way Hewitt would let this one get away. The feeling intensified when Hewitt got up an early break. It heightened again when Hewitt had three match points. It turns out that he needed all three to close out the match.
After the match in an interview with commentator Jim Courier, Hewitt said, “It was just another game, but it was a bloody big game.”
Next up for Hewitt is Novak Djokovic.
Comments