Hewitt gives Australia 3-1 lead in Cup

Monday, 11 July 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A CONFIDENT Lleyton Hewitt carried Australia one step closer to top tier Davis Cup tennis on Sunday, his singles win securing a 3-1 victory over China in the Asia-Oceania Group One second round tie in Beijing.

Hewitt, who was originally listed to play only Saturday’s doubles match, replaced cup debutant Marinko Matosevic for the first of Sunday’s reverse singles.

The 30-year-old South Australian, who combined with Chris Guccione to win Saturday’s pivotal doubles rubber, fully justified the faith of team captain Pat Rafter.

Hewitt beat 382nd ranked Zhang Ze 6-2 6-1 4-6 7-6 (7-2) to record his 37th win in 46 Cup singles rubbers.

With the tie secured, the remaining reverse singles rubber was scrapped.

It was doughty Davis Cup scrapper Hewitt’s 20th win in 21 Cup hardcourt rubbers and improved his Australian all-time individual Cup record to 46-12.

The win qualified Australia for the World Group play-offs in September, when another victory will put them back in the World Group for the first time since 2007.

The draw for the play-offs is on Tuesday. Among the other teams involved will be this year’s World Group first-round losers, India, Russia, Czech Republic, Romania, Chile, Belgium, Croatia and Austria.

Australia apart, other Group One winners over the weekend included Brazil, Japan, Israel and Italy.

The 173rd ranked Hewitt broke Zhang three times in each of the first two sets.

Zhang had two breaks to Hewitt’s one in the third and each broke once in the fourth, before Hewitt stormed away in the tie-break.

“I got subbed in to play today and I felt pretty confident going into the match and the first two sets I played extremely good tennis,” Hewitt said.

“I played very well, I went out with a very good game plan and executed to perfection.

“I had a slight dip of intensity and concentration at the start of the third set, but to Zhang Ze’s credit he fought extremely hard from then on in and changed his game plan and played well for the next two sets.

“I was happy to get out of it in the fourth set.”

Rafter described his first tie as captain as very intense.

He praised the Chinese team, who didn’t field a single player ranked in the top 300, but won one singles rubber, took a set in two others and only lost the doubles by one break in each set.

“When I played it was very different, because you feel like you can control the situation whether you win or you lose, but sitting on the sideline I was just trying to relax as much as I could,” Rafter said.

“We were very very impressed with the Chinese team, I thought they were absolutely brilliant the way they fought hard.”