[Online exclusive] Mercedes-Benz Cup: Cup's No. 1 seed breaks through to quarterfinals
Lleyton Hewitt showed why he was the No. 1 seed at the Mercedes-Benz Cup on Wednesday night. He overpowered Michael Joyce with aces, hard cross-court forehands and backhands and the occasional lob, beating the American 6-3, 6-0 in the second-round match.
"I felt like I was in total control of the match," the Australian and last year's No. 1 player internationally said.
It didn't seem that way in the beginning. Leading 3-2, Hewitt lost the next three points and eventually had his serve broken by Joyce, tying the set at 3-3.
That would be the last game Joyce would win for the rest of the match.
"I felt like I could take the foot off the pedal in stages," Hewitt said. "I thought I had a lot better rhythm, put a lot of pressure on his service game, and I tried to play more percentage tennis."
Hewitt immediately broke Joyce's serve and won four straight points when he served, making the score 5-3.
In the next game, Joyce committed a couple of double faults to help Hewitt win the set.
Hewitt did have one scare in the third set. Serving and leading 2-0, Hewitt couldn't put away a resilient Joyce. Joyce had two breakpoints and forced the game to six deuces before Hewitt put him away.
Hewitt will play Kenneth Carlsen of Denmark in a quarterfinal match Friday.
In another second-round match Wednesay, Carlsen beat Prakash Amritraj 6-4, 6-2. Amritraj played at the Los Angeles Tennis Center just a few months ago as a USC junior and qualified for the second round by beating Marat Safin in the first round after Safin retired because of injury.
In Wednesday's other singles matches, Germany's Nicolas Kiefer beat No. 3 seed Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands 6-4, 6-4, and Vincent Spadea of the United States beat the Czech Republic's Jan Vacek 7-5, 2-6, 6-2. The two winners will play each other Friday in the quarterfinals.
Thursday's action kicks off at noon with former Bruin Eric Taino against No. 4 Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil. That match will be followed by No. 5 Mark Philippoussis of Australia against American Michael Chang; No. 7 seed Wayne Ferreira will then play Alex Bogomolov Jr of the United States.
The other singles match is American Robby Ginepri against No. 2 seed Sebastien Grosjean at 7:30 p.m.
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