2005 Australian Open - Day #4
By Eleanor Preston  |  January 20, 2005

For two sets James Blake had the hopes and dreams of Australia on the tip of his racket as he threatened to end Lleyton Hewitt’s 2005 Australian Open when it had barely begun.

Blake led Hewitt by a set and was twice a break up in the second and the Rod Laver Arena was sizzling with a combination of fear and excitement as the 14,000 in there contemplated the notion of their only hope for the men’s singles title being knocked out in the second round.

No Australian has won the title in Melbourne since Mark Edmondson in 1976 and that fact is source of heart break for this sporting mad nation. Opinions of Hewitt are mixed – many traditional tennis fans are put off by his on-court posturing – but they would still take an Australian-born champion over any other kind.

Blake could have and should have put Hewitt two sets down; instead he found himself with the full wrath of possibly the world’s most competitive man and 14,000 of his closest friends bearing down on him and took fright. Blake lost the first break he had in the second set but still had the chance to serve it out, only to show a touch of what Australians call ‘pea heartedness’ – in other words, he choked.

Hewitt, being Hewitt, took full advantage and, to his credit, pulled off a range of shots which rubbed salt into Blake’s wounds, particularly in the second set tiebreaker. He screamed so hard when he sealed the tiebreaker that it’ll be a surprise if he isn’t hoarse by the end of the week.

Thereafter Blake came not so much second as third in a match which ceased to be a contest in the third and fourth sets. Hewitt was rampant, Blake was hampered by a painful and bloodied finger on his racket hand, and Australia’s hero (or anti-hero, depending on who you ask) lived to fight another day.

For neutrals it was a reminder of the player Blake once promised to be and still might evolve into. His progression was slowed first by complications to his chronic back condition and by a freak accident sustained while practicing on clay in Rome, where he went to chase down a drop shot and rang head first into the net post, an incident which left him concussed and with a back that was considerably more painful that it had been before.

Against Hewitt – at least for the first two sets – the old Blake was back. His whipped forehands and penetrative serves had Hewitt on the stretch and it was only when his nerve gave out that the feisty little man from Adelaide came back into the match. As much as Blake will be disappointed by the outcome against Hewitt, there were plenty of promising signs for the American.

“He’s a dangerous player,” admitted Hewitt. “He had not a lot to lose out there and he’s got as good a forehand as anyone out there when it’s on. There was a lot of momentum swings out there and I was trying to hang on as much as anything. He and Clement (Hewitt’s first round opponent) are a couple of the toughest unseeded players in the draw. Blake has been in the top 25 or so in the world and has beaten a lot of the best players. It was never going to be easy.”

By contrast, Andy Roddick’s match against Greg Rusedski hardly merited the description for the first set, at least until Rusedski came to and begun to play. He levelled the match and while Roddick was good enough to run out a 6-0, 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 winner, the Briton at least managed to make more of a match of it than the first set rout suggested.

Joining Hewitt and Roddick in the third round was Briton’s Tim Henman, who trotted past Victor Hanescu with very little trouble. Henman, seeded seventh, plays Nikolay Davydenko next.

In the women’s draw Lindsay Davenport had to come from a set down to beat Michaela Pastikova in a stuttering performance that made Venus Williams’ 6-3, 6-1 victory over Shuai Peng look like a cakewalk.

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