| Safin silences nation in winning Open
MELBOURNE -- It was a sickening sound to 20 million pairs of Australian ears -- a "thwack!" that was heard from Sydney to Perth, the Great Barrier Reef to Tasmania at 9:49 last night in Rod Laver Arena.
Whether delivered by television or radio, it hurt like a punch in the belly throughout Oz, as they like to call their fortunate country. Or at least like the last bottle of beer falling from the fridge and shattering. At that moment, Lleyton Hewitt shattered, too. Although the scrambling Hewitt spent the next 46 minutes gamely trying to pick up the pieces, a "relieved" Marat Safin was contemplating his own stash of cold lager to celebrate the ultimate triumph of his in-and-out career.
Maybe all 20 million Aussies weren't tuned in. But most of them certainly were, hoping, even praying for Hewitt, the combative young man on their mission, whose obsession was to retrieve the long lost tennis championship of this massive island for his fellow homebodies.
But when Hewitt's serve thwacked the net for a double fault that turned the lead from his hands to Safin's in the third set, it seemed the omen of doom. You could feel it. Safin, the large Muscovite dueling with Hewitt for the Australian Open title, could feel it. Seeming, to the Hewitt faithful, the reincarnation of Rasputin, the demonic Russian monk of old, Safin was exorcising personal demons in his 1-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, victory.
He liked that "thwack!" very much. "I needed that double fault," he said. "I prayed for it. It was a relief at the right time. I needed a present."
Everything had changed in a matter of minutes. Trailing, 4-1, in the third set, and 30-0 as Hewitt served the seventh game, Safin shifted into overdrive to bust serve with a gigantic backhand the length of the court, and kept churning on a seven-game gallop to 2-0 in the fourth from which the Aussie couldn't recover. The fatal double fault made it 5-4 for Safin, whose newfound confidence and oppressive serving curdled a nation's sometimes jingoistic hopes.
The stadium was filled with 15,300 bodies while 4,000 others were clotted in the adjoining Jumbotron garden, a loud, solid front for Hewitt even though a few Russian flags were bravely flapping.
Until last night it had been a haunted house of two lost finals for the Russian: in 2002 and 2004. A year ago, seeming washed up, coming in as No. 86, Safin was worn out by five-set wins over Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi by the time he faced champ Roger Federer.
Despite the fervor of and for Hewitt, unable to become the wizard of Oz, the Open remains a haunted tournament in its 29th year without an Aussie bloke on the throne, dating to Mark Edmondson's 1976 score.
Beating Federer this time around (saving a match point, the first champion to do that en route since Stefan Edberg in 1985), Safin still didn't feel secure entering his fourth major final.
"I was scared, nervous, [angry] in the first set," he said. "It was getting farther away from me. I didn't think I could win."
Hewitt, the personification of perpetual motion, who had split 10 previous encounters with his foe, would have made anybody nervous the way he roamed the court, from one side of the enclosure to the other, incredibly swiping points from Safin, making him hit one more shot. The swift little thief pushed the Russian into exasperating mistakes, cleverly mixing his speeds and spins as he baselined.
In the game Hewitt was building the 4-1 lead in the third, he ripped a forehand winner to cap a 30-stroke exchange, and Safin wailed.
He pitched his racket a few times, finally -- his specialty -- fracturing one of them. "That made me feel better," he said. And he soon began to believe in himself again, as he had throughout the tournament and while ending prohibitive favorite Federer's winning parade of 26 matches. He applauds his coach, Peter Lundgren, for getting him over a high hurdle, "a psychological thing, the doubts, not believing in myself." Lundgren, a Swede who had coached Federer to No. 1, needed "about five months before he understood who I am, and I understood what he wanted from me," said Safin. "It started to come together.
"Public opinion was in my head, that I would never win another major. I didn't think I could," added Safin, the US Open champ of 2000. As a 20-year-old, he annihilated Pete Sampras. "My coach convinced me I could do it again. That's why this is my most special win. Beating Sampras was a mistake. I had nothing to lose. Nobody really cared. Even if I would lose in three sets, people would say, `Great tournament, you played great -- but he's Pete Sampras.' No pressure. Then the pressure came."
A 12-1 shot with the bookies at the outset, Safin "stepped it up in the seventh game of the third, turned on his incredible power," in Hewitt's words. "He began serving aces all the time." Sixteen of Safin's 18 aces speckled the third and fourth sets.
"Every match I played was like a final, like Davis Cup," said Hewitt, who came close to losing to Rafael Nadal and David Nalbandian in five sets, and was threatened by James Blake, Juan Ignacio Chela, and Roddick in four. "It was awesome to have the whole country behind me, an adrenaline buzz."
But when the blue sky of a lovely summer evening faded to black, so did Hewitt's prospects. He kept hustling, hanging tough, unlike Lindsay Davenport, who swooned, losing the lead and the last nine games, to Serena Williams in the women's final, 2-6, 6-3, 6-0.
"But he was running out of gas," said Safin, who had recovered his direction, belief, and high-velocity groundies. This wasn't a reprise of Sampras 2000 when Safin was nailing Sampras with passing shots. Hewitt, doing the same to Sampras in carrying Flushing Meadow in 2001, was a different adversary whom the Russian eventually broke down by outgunning him long distance.
Seated in his chair before serving the fortnight's last game, Safin fortified himself with a banana. He'd had his present from Hewitt in that thwacking double fault.
Now it was time for four farewell gifts to himself -- an ace, two service winners, and a forehand winner -- leaving him alone as the young season's top banana.
- Boston.com
Bec, Lleyton engagement official
AGENTS for tennis ace Lleyton Hewitt and soap star Bec Cartwright have confirmed the couple's engagement. Hewitt went down on one knee following his defeat in the Australian Open final last night. Home and Away star Cartwright had cheered her boyfriend on during the match.
The couple's agents confirmed Hewitt popped the question after the loss to Russian Marat Safin.
"Stephen Harmon from Encompass Management and Justine Cohen from Octagon confirmed ... Lleyton Hewitt and Bec Cartwright's engagement following the Australian Open finals," a statement said. "Lleyton and Bec met five years ago at a Starlight Foundation charity tennis day and rekindled their relationship late last year. The couple were instantly committed to each other and their close connection has been well documented in the media through their public acknowledgement and mutual support. Bec proudly revealed the ring presented to her by Lleyton ... to overjoyed family and friends at the post tennis final celebrations."
Hewitt reportedly got down on bended knee in a quiet corner before heading into the private party celebrating the end of the competition. Channel 7 said Cartwright had had no advance warning, but Hewitt was prepared with a "big diamond".
The 23-year-old tennis player had apparently hoped to propose after winning the grand slam final, but instead lost to the fourth-seeded Safin 1-6 6-3 6-4 6-4.
A concierge at Melbourne's Park Hyatt Hotel said the pair looked happy when they returned to the hotel last night. "Magic was in the air, and of course love was in the air. The two parties looked fantastic together and they were both very happy," Damien Miller said on Seven.
Today Cartwright was back at work in Sydney. The actor dodged media at Melbourne and Sydney airports and was today understood to be filming on the set of Home and Away on Sydney's northern beaches.
Both Cartwright and Hewitt recently ended long-term relationships. Hewitt was engaged to Belgian tennis star Kim Clijsters before that relationship ended last October, while Cartwright split with actor boyfriend Beau Brady late last year.
- Herald Sun | |
Bob talks about the Tennis match and all I can talk about is him getting engaged. Typical