Rafael Nadal - David Horton

It was billed as the match of the tournament so far, but in the end as a contest it did not quite live up to that as the defending champion Rafael Nadal overcame Lleyton Hewitt with the minimum of fuss, 6-3 6-1 7-6(5).

This eagerly awaited 4^th round encounter had been hyped up after their memorable 4 set duel here last year, and more recently their nail-biting semi-final clash in Hamburg where the Aussie led 5-3 in the final set before succumbing to the bullish Spaniard.

Today, Hewitt came out of the blocks slowly just as he had done in his previous match against Jarkko Nieminen, and quickly found himself 1-5 as the near capacity crowd on Chatrier Court watched in stunned silence. Although the former world no.1 got one of the breaks back, he conceded his serve to 15 at 3-5 to lose the set, driving a backhand wide.

Hewitt's main difficulty was that he was not getting enough first serves in (48%) which was allowing Nadal to dictate from the word go. Also, unlike in Hamburg, he was not taking any risks off the ground, content instead to rally passively from the back rather than trying to take the ball early and move the Spaniard around.

The second set was a similar story with Nadal racing through the set in just 33 minutes with two breaks of the Hewitt serve.

The match only took off as a contest late in the third set when Hewitt having dropped his serve in the 11^th game, fought back and broke Nadal on his third break point with some aggressive hitting that forced a backhand error to roars of delight from the audience who were desperate for the match to go on.

Hewitt began the tiebreak as he meant to continue, ripping a forehand down the line that beat Nadal for an outright winner. Punishing rally followed punishing rally as the rejuvenated Hewitt looking to boss his illustrious opponent from the back, forced another error from Nadal to move to 4-2. The excitement in the stadium was tangible as the prospect of a fourth set loomed large. A Hewitt serve and volley winner gave him 5-4 to rapturous applause. Then he stalled. In the next rally with Nadal at his mercy, the Aussie netted a mid-court ball on his forehand to collective groans. Nadal moved to match point with a forehand smash winner, and took the match when Hewitt netted another forehand from mid-court.

Andre Jones
Roland Garros
Paris