Hewitt rolls back the years
Lleyton Hewitt will head into next week’s Australian Open full of confidence after beating Juan Martin del Potro to clinch the AAMI Classic.
The Australian veteran showed some of the form that took him to the top of tennis a decade ago as he dispatched the world number seven 6-1 6-4 in a little over an hour.
Hewitt made a fast start to proceedings as he broke Del Potro in the third and fifth games to take a stranglehold on the first set.
The 31-year-old sealed the set on the back of another break and made it eight straight games when he raced out to a 3-0 lead in the second.
But the 2009 US Open champion gradually worked his way back into the match to break back and level the set at 4-4.
That would be as close as he got as Hewitt held serve and then clinched the match on the back of a vintage forehand winner.
Hewitt begins his Australian Open campaign on Monday night against eighth seed Janko Tipsarevic and will be confident of another big scalp after he also beat world number six Tomas Berdych and world number 15 Milos Raonic this week at Kooyong.
