Lleyton Hewitt staged a trademark barnstorming comeback from two sets down yesterday to beat 2004 champion Gaston Gaudio and reach the French Open third round.
Hewitt's marathon 4-6, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 victory was the fourth time in his career that he had performed such a stunning turnaround.
Hewitt was second best in the opening two sets.
The first lasted 62 minutes with the Australian failing to convert any of his four break points before Gaudio soon took a two sets lead.
But Hewitt is the king of lost causes.
He cut back on the unforced errors in the third set and then levelled the contest by snatching the fourth as his opponent's game imploded.
Hewitt broke in the first and fifth games of the decider and took the match with a love service game after three hours 28 minutes.
Hewitt had to come back from two sets down to beat Michael Russell in the first round of this year's Australian Open.
His first such dramatic recovery came against Guillermo Canas in the fourth round here in 2001, and the second was in 2003 when he beat Roger Federer in a Davis Cup semi-final.
Top seeds Roger Federer and Justine Henin both scored straight sets successes on Wednesday to reach the third round of the French Open on a day of few upsets.
The Swiss ace barely broke sweat as he ambled past French wildcard Thierry Ascione 6-1, 6-2, 7-6 (10/8).
Women's defending champion Henin had to see off a bold challenge from the youngest player in the women's draw to move closer to her dream of winning a third straight French Open crown.
Having pocketed the opening set, the Belgian then made her class and experience tell by dominating the third set for a 7-5, 6-1 win setting up a third round tie against Mara Santangelo of Italy.
Taiwan's hopes of getting a player into the second round of the singles were dashed when Gisela Dulko of Argentina beat Hsieh Su-wei (
The 21 year-old world No. 124 has yet to make it past the first round of a Grand Slam tournament.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later