wimb07

Novak Djokovic overcame injury and a match that was slipping away from him to beat the 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt in a gripping four-and-a-quarter hour encounter this afternoon.

This fourth round match seemed likely to hinge on an awkward fall Djokovic took in the third set that clearly impeded his movement thereafter; but the fastest rising star in men’s tennis held on thrillingly to win 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (7-2), 4-6, 7-6 (7-5). He will play Marcos Baghdatis for a place in the semi-finals.

You will need to travel a very long way to see a more riveting set of tennis than these two produced first up. As the match began at 11am Hewitt had the support of a small knot of highly vocal Australians urging on their man from the sparsely populated No. 1 Court stands.

At 5-5, Djokovic errors put him at 0-30 but classy serving brought him the next four points as if the crisis didn’t exist. Then Hewitt answered a similar emergency with some splendid wrong footing grass court play, exacerbated by a problem that recurred time and again for Djokovic throughout the entire match – his feet kept sliding from under him.

So to the tiebreak, and it was a classic. The first rally lasted 28 strokes, ending only when Djokovic sent the ball long. At 4-4, with the two of them trading mini-breaks, came an astonishing rally of 40 strokes, culminating in a killer crosscourt backhand from Hewitt, who then aced to hold two set points.

Another marathon of 24 strokes saw Djokovic save the first set point with a drop shot and follow it with two commanding rallies to bring up set point. Hewitt saved with an unreturnable serve, then did it again for his third set point. Djokovic aced emphatically, and watched Hewitt send a forehand long to give the Serbian his second set point. Hewitt cursed and repeated the mistake, and the set was gone.

Only now was the court even beginning to fill, and many thousands had missed a wonderful set. The second set came as the lull after the storm, although unexpectedly Djokovic broke at once. Furious, Hewitt fought to get it back. Cursing himself again throughout a 13-minute game, he got what he wanted. Four games later he was swearing again when he could not capitalise on getting Djokovic to 0-30. But the Serbian was unable to convert his own opportunity to break either.

The tiebreak was the polar opposite of the first set. A lucky net cord gave Djokovic the mini-break straight away, and then Hewitt sent ground strokes long to give the Serbian five set points. He sealed it with a crosscourt backhand, and for all the burning energy Hewitt had invested in this match, he faced a long haul back. His supporters in the stands had fallen tellingly silent, and so had he.

The third set (featuring the briefest of rain breaks at 1-1) began as if it were a formality, especially when at 3-2 Djokovic forced an error for break point. But Hewitt saved it, and in the next game the Serbian fell painfully on the turf, skidding almost to the splits and jarring his back. It threw his game off balance. Hewitt gained break points for 4-3 and converted, bellowing his glee. Djokovic saw the set go, and belatedly called for the trainer.

But in the fourth he was still not moving as well as before. Hewitt’s chances to break were coming thick and fast. At 1-2, Hewitt converted, but then disastrously committed a string of errors to gift it right back. Djokovic was grabbing further treatment from the trainer in the one minute changeover, and fighting off Hewitt’s every break opportunity, as if knowing that he could not last a fifth set. He even had chances of his own. At 4-4 Hewitt breached Djokovic’s defences – but unbelievably gave it back again for 5-5.

In the tiebreak Djokovic stretched away, marking his superiority with a 23-stroke rally that culminated in a stunning backhand to give him 4-0, leaving Hewitt lying helpless on his back. And that, figuratively speaking, was where he was forced to stay. Djokovic needed three match points but a first Wimbledon quarter-final was his.

Finally, at 4.53pm on day eight of The Championships, Lleyton Hewitt reached the fourth round. He did so with a draining 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Guillermo Canas in a match that was first called on Saturday evening, eventually got on court on Monday afternoon and was finished on Tuesday. The rain has a lot to answer for around here.

It was not so much the business of playing Canas that was so exhausting for the Australian firebrand, it was the on-again-off-again way the match dragged on that was doing the damage.

Hewitt, after all, knows all about beating the Argentine, having done so in five of their seven previous meetings. But every time Hewitt thought he was getting his teeth into the match, the rain would return and it would be back to the locker room to wait for another gap in the clouds.

"That's the longest and toughest rain‑delayed match I've ever had to put up with," Hewitt said. "Obviously it's so strange for everyone getting ready to play Saturday, late Saturday, and then having a day off on Sunday. So that was strange for starters.

"But then to go on and off so many times, it was a mental battle more than anything out there. You just couldn't get down on yourself at all or get worried with the situation because it was the same for everyone.

"I felt like I handled it exceptionally well. We were sitting in the locker room all day yesterday. As I said, we got ready, put our shoes on, warmed up maybe 10, 15 times yesterday."

Hewitt handled it well, indeed. He had had a night to contemplate his lot and knew that when he returned to court today, he had to be sharp. He was a break up in the third set, but standing at break point down. And Canas is not the sort of chap to let an opportunity pass him by.

Sure enough, Canas pounced and got the third set back on serve. So Hewitt broke straight back. But just as Canas had grabbed himself another break point, the rain returned. Allowed back to work again, Hewitt was not going to stand for much more of this.

One more exchange of breaks and he was 5-3 ahead and serving for the set. This time there was no messing about and once he had secured the lead by two sets to one, Canas and the rain could do what they liked – Hewitt was on his way to the last 16.

Australian Lleyton Hewitt was untroubled in his second round match against Simone Bolelli of Italy, winning in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1.

The 2002 Wimbledon champion, seeded No. 16 this year, had too much experience for his opponent, who displayed flashes of his talent but was overwhelmed by the grand stage of Court No. 1.

Twenty-one year-old Bolelli shares Hewitt’s penchant for backward-facing peaked caps, but today that’s where the similarities ended. A temporary lapse of concentration by Hewitt allowed Bollelli onto the scoreboard at 4-1 in the first set, and the complexion of the match might have changed if the Italian had been able to capitalise on a clutch of opportunities to break Hewitt in the following game.

He wasn’t able to do that, and although Bolelli held serve once again for 2-5, Hewitt served out the set with ease.

In the second set, Bolelli brought out some brutal backhands, but was repeatedly undone by his own impatience. His willingness to avoid long rallies with the great Australian baseliner might have been understandable, but he couldn’t find the finesse needed to execute a more daredevil strategy.

Hewitt, still barely breaking into a sweat, broke serve for 3-2 in the second set and didn’t look back. After 73 minutes of play he was ahead two sets to love.

The final set also saw Hewitt break for 2-1, and after holding his own serve he became jealous of each point. Hitting freely, he easily broke Bolelli twice more, including the final game of the match. Hewitt even had luck on his side: holding three match points at 0-40, he was helped by a let-cord forehand that dropped on the hapless Italian’s side of the court.

Considering his opponent is ranked 194 in the world, former Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt should perhaps have marked up a more positive result than his 7-5, 6-3, 7-5 win over the British wild card, Richard Bloomfield.

If Hewitt, winner here in 2002 but seeded this year only 16th, undoubtedly played some way below his best, credit must go to 24-year-old Bloomfield for the way he never stopped trying to take the game to an opponent renowned for his fighting qualities.

Bloomfield served particularly well, never showing signs of being overawed by the occasion or the man he was facing across the net. This was despite the fact that he has only won one match on the main tour, last year at Wimbledon. Bloomfield was making his fourth appearance at The Championships, all by courtesy of a wild card, and his career peaked in March this year when he rose to a ranking of 176.

If such opposition looked like fodder for the Australian, it did not work out that way. He was kept scrambling by Bloomfield's quickness around the court and willingness to get to the net. What swung the match Hewitt's way was the effectiveness of his cross-court forehand. Time and again, its power proved the ace stroke against the wild card.

An indication of Bloomfield's ability to battle came as early as the opening set, when he trailed 5-2, only to sweep the next three games - holding serve to love, breaking Hewitt to love, and then holding again for the loss of a single point.

Hewitt being Hewitt, the response was spectacular. One of his cross-court specials had Bloomfield in trouble, but the set-winning point was the beauty - a backhand topspin lob that left Bloomfield flat-footed.

A single service break, in the fourth game, was enough to put Hewitt two sets ahead, but Bloomfield kept alive the hopes of the home supporters in the crowd as the third set went to 5-5. Hewitt once more lifted his game, broke again and served out confidently for a place in the second round.