Hewitt knocked out Federer in Halle to gain his Seventh Grass-Court Title
A 15 win-less match streak was snapped by Lleyton Hewitt in a final against the World number one Roger Federer. On his debut, Lleyton won the Gerry Weber Open title by defeating Federer with a 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 victory in Halle.
The victory itself was a great achievement for Lleyton keeping in mind the record of Federer on the grass courts. Playing against Federer on a grass court is a big challenge however Lleyton was lucky enough to come out of the match successfully.
Hewitt is getting closer towards the finale of his tennis career. The tennis star had gone through a number of surgical treatments as well. Hence, competing at this stage of his career and eventually ending it up by winning another title must be an exciting thing for him. According to Lleyton, the entire tournament has been terrific and he would love to come here the next season as well.
Lleyton was given 250 South African Airways 2010 ranking points in ATP As well as €113,600. On the other hand, Federer who has won 250 grass-court tournaments received 150 ranking points and €59,900 as prize money.
The victory for Hewitt over Federer came as the first one after a period of about six years. Earlier in September 2003, he defeated Federer in the semi final match of the Australia’s Davis Cup in five sets.
With 7-0, the Australian tennis ace has worked extremely hard to upgrade his record in the grass court finals of the ATP World tournaments. He triumphed at Wimbledon 2002, won Hetrogenbosch in the season 2001 and is also a former defender at the Queen’s club for four times. Among all the present players, Hewitt has won the greatest number of matches’ son the grass court, compiling a life time score of 98-23.
The 28 years old Federer at one stage of the game was in total control of the match situation and was close to snatch his 16th straight win over Lleyton. However, the ninth game of the second set of the match actually turned the entire situation. The eighth seed Hewitt, mustered up his courage to hold the serve and later on compelled a tie break, which he snatched 7-4.
Hewitt broke the serve later on and dominated the game all through the rest of the match with the help of his wing. On the other hand, the error counts of Roger Federer kept on increasing. Hewitt got an opportunity in the third and seventh game to further stretch his lead however he managed to snatch the victory in the 10th game of the match.
Hewitt nearly stumbled; giving up a 30/0 lead and resulting in a loss of a point to provide Federer a turning point opportunity, but the right-handed tennis ace kept his nerves and colored the line with his forehand to prevent Federer before snatching victory on his first match point after a time period of about two hours and 21 minutes.
After the match, Hewitt admitted that he had to put in a lot of extra effort combined with an excellent implementation of his game strategy that has given him this victory. There were a couple of close shots through out the match but Hewitt backed him extremely well at the end of the day. The tennis fans saw a wonderful display of tennis especially in the third set of the match.
The 28 years old Federer also accepted Hewitt’s better zone, rhythm and confident play all through the match that made the conditions tough for him in the end. With this defeat, Federer has lost a match in Halle after a period of eight years.
However, the clay court king is still satisfied with his level of tennis and blames fortune for not making it through in the match against Hewitt. A defeat here can not work a great deal in putting the big man in trouble for the next week and is completely ready for the upcoming Wimbledon.
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