Lleyton Hewitt undoes Leonardo Mayer; cruises into the second round – Gerry Weber Open 2011
Australian Lleyton Hewitt dumped lucky loser, Argentinean Leonardo Mayer in straight sets at Gerry Webber Open 2011, a build up for Wimbledon. He registered a 6-2, 6-3 victory over the 24-year-old Argentinean here at Halle, Germany
to advance into the second round on Wednesday.
Defending champion Hewitt beat the Argentinean in their first meeting in sixty-eight minutes to book a second round spot at Gerry Weber Stadion. The Aussie was scheduled to face French Open finalist and the top seed, Roger Federer
but he withdrew and Mayer earned a main draw spot despite losing in the qualifiers.
World number 73, Hewitt completely outclassed the Argentinean, ranked 133 places below him, in the opening set. He held his serve in the first game plausibly to take the lead. After Mayer held his serve in the fourth game to level
the scores at 2-2, the Aussie unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to reel of next four games in a row and clinched the opener with a 6-2 win.
He produced a better first serve share of 70 percent as compared to Argentinean’s 63 percent and registered an impressive 74 percent win on it. Hewitt clinched the set after hammering four aces, saving all three breakpoints conceded
and converting two out of three breakpoint opportunities to his advantage.
30-year-old Aussie carried his winning ways into the final set and held his serve in the first game to take the initial lead. He pinged the balls expertly onto the lines to bag all his serves. Hewitt found the coveted break in
the sixth game and seal the set by winning six games to three.
He clobbered a spectacular 85 percent win on his slightly lower first serve share and converted the only breakpoint opportunity to his advantage to advance in the ATP World Tour 250 series event.
"I didn't have a lot of high expectations going out there," admitted Hewitt, who trained on grass in London prior to the event. "But I felt I got better as the match went on, which was good. I got used to the conditions and the
grass out there. It's totally different to the practice courts at the moment, which took me a little while to adjust."
Up next for the Aussie is the Italian Andreas Seppi who rallied past German wild card entrant, Tommy Haas in a three set thriller to reach this spot. Seppi is eying for an eight tour level title on grass court and plays best in
this surface.
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