Lleyton Hewitt has been defeated by Martin Alund of Argentina in the first round of the US men’s clay court championship. Alund won the match by 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
Hewitt had a long journey from Uzbekistan to USA. He didn’t seem to be completely recovered from that. There were signs of tiredness in his performance and as the match progressed, his movements got slower and slower.
Hewitt was in Uzbekistan to represent Australia in a Davis Cup match. After helping his country winning that clash by 3-1, Hewitt took a flight to USA. That was certainly a long journey and Hewitt would have been completely exhausted. He needed rest which he didn’t get and as a result, his performance was poor in the match.
In the post match interview, Hewitt said, “It was tough to get going after such an exhausting journey. I was always going to struggle. I tried my best, but, couldn’t pull it off.”
“I just had to win this match and then, I would have got a bit of rest before the next match, but, it didn’t happen unfortunately.”
On the other hand, Alund was looking happy after securing a win over Hewitt. The Argentinean said, “He was struggling a bit, but, still, he won the first set and that did pressurize me. But, he couldn’t really keep the intensity going and I took advantage of that.”
Hewitt got a breakthrough in the 7th game of the first set to take a lead of 4-3. He won his next couple of service games after that and sealed the set by 6-4.
In the second set, Alund broke Hewitt’s serve in the 2nd game, but, he was broken back immediately.
Alund got another breakthrough in the 6th game and this time, he enhanced that lead by serving out the 7th game. All he wanted after that was a serve hold and he got that in the 9th game to win the second set.
In the final set, Hewitt got absolutely bamboozled by the Argentinean. All he won in that set was one game and ended up losing the match.