Lleyton Hewitt defeats Roger Federer, the Wimbledon wash-up
If the first two of the four Wimbledon warm-up tournaments are to provide any guide to how events will pan out at the All England Club, then expect to see Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Querrey at the pointy end of proceedings.
The weekend’s finals saw Querrey pick up his third title of the year at the Aegon Championships at London’s Queen’s Club and Hewitt break a 15-match losing streak against Roger Federer in the final of the Gerry Weber Open in Halle.
We’ll get back to Querrey and why that result should probably be taken with a truckload of salt, but Hewitt inflicting a rare defeat over Federer on grass must provide some genuine pause for thought.
The world No. 2 had won 29 straight matches at the German tournament , a run that included five titles, but Hewitt denied him a 30th, and a sixth title, with a 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 victory in the final.
The title is the Australian’s first at Halle, which he elected to play this year instead of undertaking his usual Wimbledon preparations at the Aegon Championships, and his first on grass courts since he claimed his fourth Queen’s title in 2006.
The 2002 Wimbledon champion has spent the last couple of years battling hip injuries, undergoing his most recent round of hip surgery only this January, but his victory over Federer in the final sends a strong message ahead of the grass-court major: Hewitt is a contender.
Sure, Federer and Rafael Nadal must enter the tournament as favourites, and last year’s beaten finalist Andy Roddick probably deserves to be rated as perhaps the next best chance behind the world’s top two players, but Hewitt must surely be rated among the next bunch of challengers.
After all, he was a quarter-finalist last year (losing 3-6, 7-6(10), 6-7(1), 6-4, 4-6 to Roddick in a match that came within nine minutes of reaching the four-hour mark and, despite another season curtailed by injury, the 29-year-old is playing some solid tennis right now.
You don’t beat Federer on grass playing in any other way.
Indeed, since 2003, only one other man has triumphed over the Swiss on lawn and that was Nadal in the 2008 Wimbledon final.
Back in London, and seventh seed Querrey was the last man standing in a draw where all the hard work, in the form of defeating the top six seeds (including world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, top five players Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, and four-time champion Andy Roddick) had already been done for him.
In the end, Querrey was left to defeat world No. 90 Mardy Fish in the final and his highest-ranked opponent was fellow American Robby Ginepri, ranked 70th in the world, in the first round.
There’s no doubt the world No. 21 is enjoying the best season of his career, but in the circumstances, the addition of the title at Queen’s to those already won at on clay in Belgrade and on the hard courts in Memphis doesn’t provide a particularly insightful guide to Querrey’s Wimbledon chances.
So what can we conclude from the weekend’s results then? It’s fair to say Hewitt can take plenty of positives from his defeat of the 16-time Grand Slam champion as he heads to Wimbledon, but Querrey, on the other hand, would be well advised to be rather more circumspect about becoming the Queen’s Club champion this year.
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