Lleyton Hewitt\u2019s Wimbledon comeback has produced an incredible first-round doubles victory \u2013 even by his fighting standards \u2013 in which he and Jordan Thompson saved a remarkable eight match points.<\/p>\n
Hewitt and Thompson defeated Spanish pair Nicolas Almagro and David Marrero 6-7(6) 6-4 19-17 following a marathon 157-minute third set in a spicy encounter.<\/p>\n
Due to the many rain delays this week \u2013 which have forced organisers to play on Sunday, the traditional rest day, for just the fourth time in history \u2013 the men\u2019s doubles matches have been reduced from five to three sets for the first two rounds.<\/p>\n
But Hewitt, a player of renowned fighting qualities and a long history of five-set battles, insisted on giving fans a match of epic proportions regardless.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it eight match points? We were talking about it after the match. I knew there was quite a few, but I lost count,\u201d Hewitt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more that we just kept focusing one at a time. We couldn\u2019t do much else.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if it made him miss professional tennis, Hewitt \u2013 who retired in January \u2013 replied: \u201cProbably glad I have (retired).\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson was revelling in having tasted victory on the famous Wimbledon grass for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was unbelievable to play with Lleyton in the first round of Wimbledon, and to win 19-17 in the third set was incredible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In a testy match, the Spanish pair argued relentlessly with the chair umpire, and attempted to have crowd members removed by security.<\/p>\n
Hewitt admitted the crowd were particularly rowdy but didn\u2019t feel anyone overstepped the mark, and suggested Almagro\u2019s repeated protests were more tactical than legitimate \u2013 arguing that they surfaced during pivotal points in the match to disrupt the Australian pair\u2019s rhythm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know what was going on. \u2018Nico\u2019 was obviously into the crowd from pretty much the first thing today,\u201d Hewitt said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to stay out of it as much as we could and then we felt like we didn\u2019t really cross the line at all out there and it turned quite confrontational.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hewitt and Thompson could potentially face 2014 Wimbledon champions Jack Sock and Vasek Pospisil in round two, if the No.8 seeds can get past French duo Tristan Lamasine and Quentin Halys in their opener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lleyton Hewitt\u2019s Wimbledon comeback has produced an incredible first-round doubles victory \u2013 even by his fighting standards \u2013 in which he and Jordan Thompson saved a remarkable eight match points. Hewitt and Thompson defeated Spanish pair Nicolas Almagro and David Marrero 6-7(6) 6-4 19-17 following a marathon 157-minute third set in a spicy encounter. Due […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5788,"featured_media":11875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}