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BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL PRESENTED BY SUNCORPJanuary 3, 2014Lleyton HewittBRISBANE, QUEENSLAND L. HEWITT/M. Copil THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Hot enough out there for you? LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, I like the conditions. It was nice. It was good conditions to play in. It didn't feel overly hot. You know, I guess with the roof and a bit of breeze coming in as well it was nice conditions to play in. Q. It looked like overall once you sort of settled in and sort of he worked out his game a little it went pretty well. LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, in the end my ball striking was great. Felt really comfortable. Felt like I controlled all of the points from halfway through the first set. I hadn't seen a lot him play before. I knew he had a big and explosive game. I was sort of trying to feel my way early on, and he sort of just jumped on a few shots and really took his chances to go up a break. Then, yeah, even from the first game I felt like I was pretty sharp with my return of serve. It as just trying more trying to find out where he was going, especially on big points, stuff like that. In the end I felt like I put pressure on nearly every one of his service games. Q. Serves were coming through at 220 in the second set. LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, no, I returned well. I made him play a lot of balls. In the end that was sort of the telling factor. He felt like he had to start going from more and more, and I was able to draw a double fault out of him at 4‑All to get the break to serve for the first set. Yeah, he didn't really want to get in a tally with me, so he tried to obviously go for a big second serve. Q. How long since you felt this good physically? LLEYTON HEWITT: A lot of last year I felt good physically. You know, took a while to get over the latest foot surgery I had. But apart from that, last year, yeah, there was times. US Open I played great, moved really well, felt good physically. Even Queen's, Wimbledon times. Q. The benefit of the pre‑season I guess as well. LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, absolutely. I feel sharp at the moment. Yeah, I feel like I've been able to do all the hard work. I did every training session that my trainer and coach wanted to put me through. Didn't miss a beat. Q. I know you've been on big stages before, but is it still exciting? LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, absolutely. This is still why you play the game, to have a crack at the best guys out there. Obviously every match gets tougher. Nishikori tomorrow is going to be tougher again. Another step up in class.  He looks it can hitting the ball well at the moment and really clean out there. It's obviously great preparation for the Australian Open, but I wanted to do well here this week. So far so good. Q. You played him before? LLEYTON HEWITT: In played him once at Wimbledon maybe two, three years ago. Q. He said you played him in Japan recently? LLEYTON HEWITT: Exhibition, yeah. Q. How was that? LLEYTON HEWITT: It was okay. Q. Cold? LLEYTON HEWITT: It was indoors, so it was cool weather. But it was a year ago, so more for the Japanese crowd I think to see him. Q. What are your thoughts on his game? LLEYTON HEWITT: He's a great ball striker and an aggressive baseliner, I would say. He serves in patches. Doesn't have the biggest serve, but it's kind of underrated. He will hit his spots well and might give me couple opportunities on second serves, but his return of serve is very good. Q. Did you feel like you're getting sort of just the right amount of match practice? LLEYTON HEWITT: It's perfect so far, yeah. I want to keep winning and get as many matches as possible obviously. I'm happy to win in straight sets. Q. Three Australians in the quarters of tournament for the first time since '04. Is that a sign of a revival? LLEYTON HEWITT: It may be. Obviously in Australia it's probably the biggest opportunity, because with wildcards and stuffwe ‑‑ I don't know how many, maybe six in the main draw here? Something like that. Obviously with wildcards and stuff we get more guys in. Grothy has had good wins, but obviously a little bit lucky not playing Kevin last night. He's improved a lot. With his style of game he can cause an upset against anyone. Marinko, obviously I'm really happy for him winning his first couple matches in Australia. I think that was really important for him. He's a quality ball‑striker. He got to 39 in the world last year, so... Q. Do you talk to him about the mental side of his game? LLEYTON HEWITT: Yeah, a little bit. You don't want to over complicate things. I'm sure a lot of people are talking to him. For me it's more I don't try and dwell on it as much. I've probably tried to work more his mental side with Davis Cup and handling that situation more than playing in Australia or Grand Slams. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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