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Tennis icon John Newcombe has pleaded with Lleyton Hewitt not to pussy-foot around with his Australian Open hopes on the line against Marcos Baghdatis on Saturday night.
Two years on from their near-dawn fifth-set shootout at Melbourne Park, Hewitt and Baghdatis return for another third-round Open blockbuster, where the reward for the winner will almost certainly be a date on Monday with world No.1 Roger Federer.
In their extraordinary 2008 encounter – which commenced at 11.47pm on Saturday and finished at 4.34am on Sunday – Hewitt overcame a dramatic fourth-set collapse to deny Baghdatis.
The Cypriot showman turned the tables on Australia’s court warrior last week in Sydney, recovering from the brink in the quarter-finals en route to grabbing his third title from his past four events.
Newcombe is tipping another cliffhanger and says Hewitt simply can’t afford to retreat into his shell in the high-stakes showdown.
“Baghdatis and he are going to have a knock-down, drag-out match. Toss a coin. They both want it really badly,” Newcombe said on Friday.
“I just hope for Lleyton he doesn’t pull back like he did in Sydney against Baghdatis when he had a set and a break.
“He started playing not to lose, rather than to win. Lleyton’s got the game to win. He’s got to back himself throughout the match.”
The marquee match-up involving two former Open runners-ups should be another cracker.
Both players had rebuilding seasons in 2009 but Baghdatis, while unseeded, is now running particularly hot, winning 18 of his past 19 matches.
“He’s a class player,” Hewitt acknowledged. “He’s always played well in Australia.
“You look back to the year he made a good run and made the final here and surprised everyone. The year I beat him he played well. This year in Sydney he played well as well.
“I played Marcos last week and I know what to expect. He’s in good form and hitting the ball extremely clean.
“He’s going to be feeling confident after winning last week and knocking off David Ferrer in five sets (in the second round here) isn’t easy either.”
Hewitt, the tournament’s 22nd seed, is hoping his easier path to the last 32 will give him an edge, especially after Baghdatis, with his history of cramping, again seized up in the closing stages of his comeback from two sets down on Thursday against Ferrer.
“Yeah, can’t be bad that I got through in straight,” he said.
“At the end of the day, I know that I’ve done the work. I know that I’ll be as fresh as I can be.
“There are certain areas I can mix up pretty well against him. He’s obviously a great ball-striker, very clean off both sides.
“When he’s serving well, his whole game sort of comes together a bit more. Obviously I’m going to have to serve well against him. That’s going to be a big key.”
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