|
|
 |
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Hewitt fires it up
Updated: Thursday June 28, 2001 6:17 PM
LONDON -- Lleyton Hewitt was a fist-pumping, chest-pounding, vocally charged jumping jack at Wimbledon on Thursday -- and the Centre Court crowd loved it. In the past, such antics have famously bugged French Open finalist Alex Corretja. He's too cocky and arrogant, claimed the Spaniard. A bit of cockiness never hurt anyone on the tennis court as far as I can remember. As for arrogance, I've never seen it in Hewitt. He's been nothing but affable here so far, and hugely fun to watch. Lleyton's a diminutive figure with a larger-than-life game and charisma to match. It's fitting that at this "new" Wimbledon -- of 1 p.m. Centre Court starts, a fresh kind of grass and no Kournikova -mania -- that the crowd has been delivered a new breed of tennis entertainer. He's got the shots, the flash, the heart -- and a burning desire to finish on top.
And just to complete the "newness" theme, the feisty Aussie has that new cropped-hair look -- which only seems right for a player scalping a few opponents on the shorn grass of Europe. Indeed, he's now won 14 successive grass court matches. So much for being a title "outsider" -- Hewitt's view of himself here.
After a woeful start against fellow 20-year-old Taylor Dent on Wednesday -- he lost the first set 6-1 -- Hewitt would silence those voices in the back of his head, which were telling him Centre Court was not yet destined to be his domain, and triumph in five sets. Banished were the memories of last year's first-round defeat on this same court to Jan-Michael Gambill, when Hewitt admitted to feeling caught off-guard by the arena and its people. This most beautiful of tennis amphitheaters can also be the most sedate of venues. It's the sport's cathedral. The largely British fans are the pew-dwellers. They need some livening up at times. Hewitt's just the man to do it.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
