It was far from easy though as Hewitt struggled to a 7-6 (7-4) 7-5 2-6 6-4 win over world No.191 Bemelmans, who was a late replacement for the injured Steve Darcis.
Hewitt broke early to seize control of the opening set, but despite a difference of over 150 ranking places, the young Belgian broke back and actually held four set points before it went to a tiebreaker.
The Australia's experience shone through in the tiebreaker as he took it 7-4, but it was far from convincing from the former world No.1.
Both players held serve with ease in the second set until the 12th game when Hewitt forced two break/set points, of which he converted the second to take the set and a stranglehold on the match.
But Bemelmans, who has played just four ATP Tour level matches for one win and three losses, wasn't about to throw the towel in just yet as he broke the Hewitt serve three times on his way to a comfortable third set.
Hewitt regrouped in the fourth set and looked on track when he broke Bemelmans early on only for the plucky Belgian to dig deep and break back in the seventh game.
The match was halted for an extended period of time after a spectator succumbed to the heat and needed medical attention, but that didn't stop Hewitt as he broke to close out the match in three hours 16 minutes.
Carsten Ball takes on Olivier Rochus in the second match as Australia looks to return to the World Group for the first time since 2007.
Meanwhile, Darcis' participation in the tie appears all but over after a medical examination on Friday morning confirmed he had small tear in his right shoulder.
===========================
At last some decent profit. It was four faves that came up as selections from yesterday evening/night matches and they all came through. The matches were at different stages of sequences but Arvidsson was the latest stage and she came through in 3 sets to beat Lucic.
It's taking a bit longer to double the bank this time. With it taking a month exactly first time then 24 days to double it again, since then it has been just over 3 weeks I think and it's only gone from £400 to £495.43. It's not something to complain about of course and it's better than going down but it does seemed to have slowed down.
I think this is clearly from the quiet USO second week where selections were very few and now this week there was only two tournaments and not many qualifying matches again. I hope (and expect) it will pick up again when the indoor tournaments start and try and get the bank growing at a decent rate again.
I'm also hoping/setting a target of around March or April next year to have a decent amount in the bank to enable to with draw, pushing 5 figures or even into 5 figures if it has a good start to next season, well I hope for that or I'll be completely bust!
Now then, a nice woman to look at.....
No comments:
Post a Comment