Lleyton Hewitt books Wimbledon clash with Novak Djokovic
Lleyton Hewitt is through to the fourth round at Wimbledon after handing Gael Monfils a 6-3, 7-6(9), 6-4, defeat on the court where eight years ago the Australian hoisted the trophy on the final day of the tournament.
The victory has booked Hewitt a clash with world No. 3 Novak Djokovic in the next round, and the gritty 15th seed might fancy his chances in that one after defeating Roger Federer for the first time in 15 matches in the final of the Gerry Weber Open in Halle just a couple of weeks ago.
Back to today’s match and while Monfils generated plenty of free points off his big first serve, including 21 aces, it was Hewitt who had the better of the rallies. The 2002 champion treated the centre court crowd to some classic grass court tennis, using the whole court to his best advantage and patrolling the net with authority, winning 85% of points from that position on the court after approaching the net on 46 occasions.
After holding serve in the opening game of the match, Hewitt looked set to skip to a 2-0 lead in the set when he created a double break point chance against Monfil’s serve the next game, but the Frenchman pulled the game back to deuce before levelling at one game apiece.
The chance for Hewitt to gain put some breathing space between him and the 21st seed arose in the eighth game of the match, when Monfils sent a backhand wide to bring up triple break point for the Australian.
A 133mph hour serve saved one of them as a diving Hewitt got a racquet on it but to no effect, but when Monfils dragged a backhand crosscourt wide the next point, Hewitt had the break and the chance to serve for the opening set, which he sealed with a volley into the back forehand corner of the court.
The 15th seed was also the only player to gain a chance to break serve in the second set, bringing up triple break point in its fifth game with some trademark scrambling, but a barrage of aces from Monfils ensured all of them were saved and games remained on serve to 6-6.
Monfils began the tiebreak with his first double fault of the match, gifting Hewitt the mini-break, but an unusually generous Hewitt returned the favour with his first serve of the breaker. From there both players traded mini breaks, and both held set point in what was a scrappy tiebreak.
Hewitt though is tennis’ ultimate scrapper and it was he who eventually won a 25-shot rally to bring up his third set point, and with a look at a Monfils second serve on the next point, the world No. 26 was able to convert it into the second set with a winning volley.
While Hewitt is no stranger to fighting back to grind out victory over the full five set duration, his 2-0 lead left Monfils – who had never before won a match from that position – with no more than a toehold in the match.
Monfils was again the first player to face break point in the third set, but saved it with a commanding forehand winner down the line, only for Hewitt to apply the pressure at the net the next point to set up a second break point chance, which he secured when Monfil sent a forehand over the baseline.
It might have crushed any vague hopes the 23-year-old might have had of staging the biggest comeback of his career, but the Frenchman kept himself in the match when in the seventh game of the third set he earned himself his first break point chances of the match, and capitalised on the second to level the scores at 4-4.
Monfils then created his third break point chance of the match with a forehand winner on Hewitt’s next service game, but Hewitt put away the smash to deny his opponent the chance to serve for the set, before sealing the game with an unreturnable serve.
The 21st seed then faced the prospect of serving to stay in the match but wasn’t up to the task as Hewitt broke Monfils to love to take the victory in two hours and eight minutes.
Earlier in the day, Djokovic recorded a 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 victory over 28th seed Albert Montanes to secure a place among the final 16 at the All England Club this year. It’s the second straight sets victory for the Serb, who began the tournament with a tough five set match against Belgium’s Olivier Rochus.
After fighting back from a 1-2 deficit in that one, however, Djokovic now looks to have hit his straps just in time for what should be an intriguing fourth round match.
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