THE Aussie boxes had been ticked all over Melbourne Park — Samantha Stosur, Peter Luczak, Nathan Healey, tales of the unexpected abounding. The full-house crowd in Rod Laver Arena relaxed in fevered anticipation of four Australians in the third round, only for Lleyton Hewitt to come a real cropper in a manner that should not have surprised anyone but the incurably Rusty-eyed.
The man they call Rusty has spent the past three weeks living up to his epithet. He had lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber, of Germany, in Adelaide, Andreas Seppi, of Italy, in Sydney and Roger Rasheed, his coach, was visibly concerned by how long it was taking for his charge’s competitive juices to start to flow.
In the first round here, last year’s beaten finalist had to be prodded into a frantic finish to see off Robin Vik, of the Czech Republic, the world No 58. Juan Ignacio Chela, conqueror of Andy Murray on Tuesday, was an entirely different proposition and even his well chronicled dislike — some prefer to put it stronger — of Argentinians could not rouse the instincts for the kill that have made Hewitt, 25 next month, such a daunting opponent. It is hard to recall the last time this model of never-say-die succumbed so easily. The 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 defeat almost certainly sends a player who once held the No 1 ranking for 75 consecutive weeks, outside the top ten.
There is a queue forming to suggest that recent performances and the fact that he sidestepped a good deal at the tail-end of last year to marry and prepare for fatherhood, is affecting a desire that was once all-consuming. He would not be the first.
Next month, he is scheduled in Switzerland for a Davis Cup tie, but how will a 20,000-mile round trip to face Roger Federer excite him?
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The “Fanatics” support group that used to swell to at least half a block in the Rod Laver Arena had dwindled to four people and only two of those could muster the desire to sing his praises yesterday.
Hewitt was dressed like a hornet, but where was the buzz? The home hero said that he struck the ball a lot better against Chela than in the first round, but Chela struck it as well as he had done against Murray. Maybe only Federer has made fewer unforced errors in his first two rounds.
Chela’s forehand may be a bit of a slappy affair, but his backhand, especially the short-arm jab down the line, is a brilliant shot and those who say that he lacks bottle on the bigger occasions had better start to re-evaluate. Almost everything Hewitt did, Chela did better and the fact that eight set points were required before the No 3 seed won his only set tells the story of a strange and rather depressing night.
Hewitt needed his left ankle strapped midway through the third set — “every time I landed on that foot, I was history”, he said, fuelling the debate about the state of the centre court. “When are people going to wake up to the fact that it isn’t good for tennis?” he said.
But even his protestations were half-hearted. This is not the Hewitt we knew and who polarised opinion more than anyone else in tennis. He said that he was “a bit disappointed” to lose. Something clearly is not right.
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In mid-afternoon, Guillermo Coria was holding court in the main interview room, where there is seating for 60. Fewer than a quarter of the chairs were occupied to listen to the No 6 seed, who is, at the best of times, dullness personified. At the same time, in the small interview room, the eight seats for the media and three comfy ones for the players could have been filled three times over.
So who were we straining to hear? Iveta Benesova’s happy meanderings about how she defeated Mary Pierce, the day’s big women’s upset? Healey and Luczak on an extraordinary day for Australian tennis? No, it was Murray and Novak Djokovic, of Serbia and Montenegro, who first played each other at 11, discussing their first-round doubles defeat. Those who could not get in were pressing their noses to the door.
Murray was relaxed, he charmed the audience and revealed that he had been go-karting, so had felt a lot better than on Tuesday. Perhaps Hewitt should take it up.