Philipp Kohlschreiber ousts defending champion Lleyton Hewitt – Gerry Weber Open 2011
Germans prevailed at their home soil in Halle as two of the local contestants – Philipp Kohlschreiber and Philipp Petzschner, made it into the semis. Kohlschreiber defeated defending champion, Australian Lleyton Hewitt 7-6(4),
6-3 in his quarterfinal match at Gerry Weber Open 2011 on Friday.
Ranked 49th in the South African Airways ATP World Tour rankings, Kohlschreiber downed a former world number one, Hewitt in straight sets in one and half hour to book a spot in the last four at Gerry Weber Stadion. He
faced the Aussie after five years and after this success, the German levelled the head-to-head scores by 2-2 against 30-year-old Hewitt.
27-year-old German confidently entered the court and bagged his entire serves. He faced zero breakpoint but failed to convert all three breakpoint opportunities to his advantage and took the set to a tie-breaker. Kohlschreiber
dominated in it and sealed the opener with a 7-6(4) win.
The German kept his momentum rolling and employed serves and volleys strategy to fish out easy points in the final set. He kept his entire serves convincingly and converted one out of three breakpoint opportunities to his advantage
to pocket the set with a 6-3 victory.
Overall, the German produced a higher first serve share of 65 percent as compared to Hewitt’s 57 percent and registered an impressive 77 percent win on it. He also hammered fourteen aces to win easily.
"All in all my serve was pretty good today," said Kohlschreiber. "I think Lleyton Hewitt is one of the best return players in the world, so you can rate that even a bit higher. I would be happy if it could be like that all the
time."
Hewitt played his first tournament since Indian Wells in March since he was sidelined due to foot and ankle injury. He made quarter-final berths at San Jose and Memphis and won the title at Kooyong AAMI Exhibition in January. He
made a great comeback in this event and triumphed over Argentinean lucky loser, Leonardo Mayer and Italian Andreas Seppi in straight sets.
Up next for Kohlschreiber is third seeded French Gael Monfils who downed a sixth seeded German, Florian Mayer, in straight sets to reach this spot.
"Now the bar has been set high. The next game will be hard, no matter who is on the other side of the net. Form on the day will decide the match," Kohlschreiber said regarding his future games in this event.
He is the second German who made to this spot since Philipp Petzschner upset rising star Raonic in a three set thriller earlier that day. Petzschner converted two out of seven breakpoint opportunities to his advantage to clinch
the match with a 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-3 win.
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