A confident Hewitt warns Tipsarevic
Source: AFP |
January 14, 2013, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A FEISTY Lleyton Hewitt yesterday warned his Australian Open first round opponent Janko Tipsarevic that he plans to "knock him off" after showing vintage form to win the Kooyong Classic.
The tenacious veteran, 31, is bursting with confidence after demolishing Juan Martin Del Potro in the final of the warm-up tournament 6-1, 6-4 on Saturday, his third victory over top-15 opposition in the past week. World No. 9 Tipsarevic is next in the Australian's line of fire, at a grand slam he is playing for a record 17th consecutive time, three more than closest challenger Roger Federer.
And Hewitt has no fear of the Serb, who won the Chennai Open in his preparation for Melbourne.
"I don't care. I'll knock him off, try to take his spot in the draw," said Hewitt, who made the fourth round of the Open last year.
"I look forward to the challenge. The last couple matches I've hit the ball as well as I can remember. I feel confident with where my game is at the moment.
"There's still a couple things I got to try to take care of when I'm on the match court.
"But all in all, when my moving comes together and I'm serving well, my returns and obviously passing shots and counter-punching has been pretty good anyways.
The two-time grand slam winner's form belies his 81st place ranking. "It's confidence in terms of going out there and matching it with the best players. They've got extremely big weapons. I was able to work around that, sort of open them up out there," he said.
The tenacious veteran, 31, is bursting with confidence after demolishing Juan Martin Del Potro in the final of the warm-up tournament 6-1, 6-4 on Saturday, his third victory over top-15 opposition in the past week. World No. 9 Tipsarevic is next in the Australian's line of fire, at a grand slam he is playing for a record 17th consecutive time, three more than closest challenger Roger Federer.
And Hewitt has no fear of the Serb, who won the Chennai Open in his preparation for Melbourne.
"I don't care. I'll knock him off, try to take his spot in the draw," said Hewitt, who made the fourth round of the Open last year.
"I look forward to the challenge. The last couple matches I've hit the ball as well as I can remember. I feel confident with where my game is at the moment.
"There's still a couple things I got to try to take care of when I'm on the match court.
"But all in all, when my moving comes together and I'm serving well, my returns and obviously passing shots and counter-punching has been pretty good anyways.
The two-time grand slam winner's form belies his 81st place ranking. "It's confidence in terms of going out there and matching it with the best players. They've got extremely big weapons. I was able to work around that, sort of open them up out there," he said.
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