Three-time defending champion Lleyton Hewitt advanced to the third-round of the Queen's Club grass-court tournament with a tougher than expected 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-6 (3) win over Raemon Sluiter on Wednesday.
The defending Wimbledon champion, working with Roger Rasheed after Jason Stoltenberg quit earlier this week as his coach, played for the first time since losing in the third round of the French Open last month.
"I knew it was going to be a tough match and that's how it was," Hewitt said "I was trying to get my footing out there and didn't feel as comfortable as, I guess, at Wimbledon last year. But I'd had a lot of matches and court time under my belt at Wimbledon."
PHOTO: REUTERS
In other matches in the Wimbledon warmup, sixth-seeded Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean beat Switzerland's Michel Kratochvil 6-3, 6-4, and hard-serving Swiss veteran Marc Rosset downed No. 9 Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 7-5, 7-5.
Former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands defeated Jan Vacek of the Czech Republic 7-5, 2-6, 6-3.
Fifth-seeded Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands advanced to the third round when American Todd Martin pulled out before the match with a chest injury.
Hewitt stayed in Paris after his loss to support women's finalist Kim Clijsters -- his girlfriend -- instead of practicing on grass.
The lack of match play showed.
"In the past I probably haven't felt that confident in my first one or two matches here, and I've probably played lesser opponents [than today] as well," Hewitt said. ``He looked like he'd played a match or two on grass, the way he was moving around the court, and he gave me a real run for my money.''
Hewitt, who served 15 aces, broke Sluiter in the seventh game of the third set, but was broken himself as he tried to close out the match in the 10th game.
Hewitt won the first six points in the tiebreak, squandered three match points, then won on a Sluiter unforced error.
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