Hewitt out to take eighth seed’s Open draw
Lining up for his record 17th straight Open, Hewitt squares off with Tipsarevic at Rod Laver Arena on Monday night.
Melbourne, Australia, 14 January 2013 | AAP
Some deem it another horror grand slam draw, but luckless Lleyton Hewitt sees his first-round Australian Open showdown with Serbian eighth seed Janko Tipsarevic as a golden opportunity.
So often pitch-forked into early-round confrontations with the Federers, Nadals and Djokovics, Hewitt is relishing the chance to go deep in the tournament with none of the sport’s dominators within sight this time around.
Lining up for his record 17th straight Open, Hewitt squares off with Tipsarevic at Rod Laver Arena on Monday night.
After claiming three successive top-15 scalps to secure his second Kooyong Classic on Saturday, unseeded Hewitt is in a fearless mood.
“I don’t care. I’ll knock him off, try to take his spot in the draw,” Hewitt said on Sunday.
“It was exactly what I wanted out of the week at Kooyong. There were a lot of positives to take out of it.
“The pleasing thing for me, I feel like I got better with every match – my sharpness and cleanness, even my moving.
“When my moving comes together and I’m serving well, my returns and obviously passing shots and counter-punching has been pretty good anyway.
“The last couple of matches I’ve hit the ball as well as I can remember when I hit it.”
Fuelling the 31-year-old’s confidence is the manner in which he dealt with world No.14 Milos Raonic, the sixth-ranked Tomas Berdych and seventh-ranked Juan Martin del Potro, the type of big-hitting tall timbers that Hewitt traditionally struggles against.
“They’ve got extremely big weapons. I was able to work around that, sort of open them up out there,” Hewitt said.
“I felt the way I was able to be aggressive with the bigger, stronger guys, all three matches, they are three of the biggest hitters out there.
“I was not able only to get their serve back but put them under pressure on their service games. So that gives me a lot of confidence.”
Hewitt leads Tipsarevic 3-1 head-to-head and has won two of their three hardcourt encounters.
But the two haven’t met since 2009, long before the Serb’s impressive rise up the rankings.
“He’s improved a bit in the last couple years obviously to get in the top 10,” Hewitt said.
“It’s going to be a tough match obviously over five sets.
“I feel like all I can control is my preparation and doing all the right things. I’ve done absolutely everything in my power.”
Hewitt is among nine Australians in action on Monday.
All eyes will be on ninth seed Samantha Stosur’s first-round tussle with Taiwan’s Kai-Chen Chang, the second match on Rod Laver Arena.
Wildcard playoff winner Bojana Bobusic has a daunting assignment against Polish fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska, who is unbeaten this summer and won the Sydney International on Friday night with a 6-0 6-0 drubbing of Dominika Cibulkova.
Teenage wildcard Ashleigh Barty faces Cibulkova, the 15th seed, while Casey Dellacqua faces American Madison Keys, Sacha Jones faces Czech Kristyna Pliskova and Olivia Rogowska has Serbian qualifier Vesna Dolonc.
Matthew Ebden plays Russian 23rd seed Mikhail Youzhny and wildcard John Millman is up against Japan’s Tatsuma Ito in his Open main-draw debut.
Bernard Tomic opens his title quest on Tuesday against Argentine Leonardo Mayer.