Apia International Sydney Tennis - Australian Open Series

Hewitt, Baghdatis to clash on day five

medibankinternational.com.au Wednesday 13 January 2010 10 Comments »

The epic clash between former Australian Open finalists Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis is the star match of an outstanding Thursday line-up at the Medibank International Sydney.

World No. 1 Serena Williams will also light up Ken Rosewall Arena in her semi-final match against Aravane Rezai, while defending champion Elena Dementieva will play Victoria Azarenka.

In the evening session, Australian No. 2 Peter Luczak will take on American Mardy Fish for a place in his first Medibank International Sydney semi-final.

Hewitt demolished Italian Andreas Seppi this afternoon 6-0 6-2 to set up the meeting with Baghdatis, who himself defeated sixth seed Viktor Troicki of Serbia 7-5 6-3.

Hewitt and Baghdatis have only played twice before but on both occasions they were matches to savour. The first time was at Wimbledon in 2006, the year the Cypriot reached the Australian Open final, and he scored a four set win.

At the 2008 Australian Open they clashed again and produced one of the most memorable matches of recent years. It went five sets, Hewitt came away as the winner and the last ball was hit at 4am.

Both of them have enjoyed a resurgence with their tennis after months away because of injury. Hewitt has brought his ranking back to No.22 while Baghdatis won the title in Stockholm last October and is now at No.42.

“He had a couple of injuries and he’s bounced back well from those,” Hewitt said. “He was always a class player. Great ball-striker and moves well from the back of the court.”
Baghdatis acknowledges that Hewitt is playing some solid tennis.

“He’s on fire,” Baghdatis said. “It’s just he has to keep healthy. It’s not very easy because a lot of guys now are fit. It’s a tougher, more physical game than before so it’s not that easy. I think you have to be unbelievable fit to get back in the top 10. That’s what I’m trying to do.

“I think he’s trying. He’s a great guy. He’s done a lot for this sport. I think he’s working out hard.”

Australian interests continue with wild card Luczak who scored a tremendous come-from-behind victory over the second seed Tomas Berdych.

The Czech took the first set 6-1 before Luczak rallied back with 6-4, 6-4. This is the first time Luczak has beaten Berdych.

Luczak now plays Fish, who defeated Evgeny Korolev 6-1 6-2. The pair have never met in a Tour level event but Fish won an encounter between the two in a Challenger eight years ago.

“He’s a great player and he’s obviously got a really big serve and good returns,” Luczak said.

Williams faces Rezai in the second match on Ken Rosewall Arena after the pair scored wins over Vera Dushevina and Flavia Pennetta respectively.

Williams feels confident that she knows how to handle the French player’s game.

“She’s a good player and she’s really young,” Serena said. “She has a lot of drive and I think she can be really good. It’ll definitely be my toughest match yet.”

Closing out day four was the quarter final between last year’s women’s singles finalists, Dementieva and Dinara Safina.

After a delayed start due to rain, Dementieva put on a masterful display to defeat her compatriot Safina 6-2 6-3.

The world No. 5 will now play sixth seed Azarenka who got through a tough three set match against Dominika Cibulkova earlier in the day.

Tags: Lleyton Hewitt, Marcos Baghdatis

You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.