Unseeded Argentine Gaston Gaudio overpowered Australian 12th seed Lleyton Hewitt 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 to advance to his first Grand Slam semifinal at the French Open in Paris on Wednesday.
The 25-year-old from Buenos Aires totally outclassed the former Wimbledon and US Open champion who never succeeded in stamping his mark on the game that lasted one hour and 55 minutes on the windy and chilly Philippe Chatrier centre court.
The former world number one hit 43 unforced errors, compared with Gaudio’s 19, and was struggling from early on against his clay-court specialist opponent.
”He was too good,” admitted Hewitt. ”I didn’t feel like I was hitting the ball as cleanly as I’d been hitting over the past week or so.
”A guy like that is confident on this surface and his movement is good. He’s a class player on this surface.”
Hewitt had been hoping to reach the last four in Paris for the first time, but after breaking to love in the very first game the Australian struggled.
Gaudio broke straight back and in the crucial sixth game the Argentine fought back from 40-0 down on Hewitt’s serve to break again and take the set in 39 minutes.
In the second set Gaudio broke immediately, rushing to a 4-0 lead.
Hewitt held serve for 1-4, but could not match the power of the Argentinian who served out to love to wrap up the second set in 36 minutes.
The 23-year-old Australian fought back from 0-40 down on his serve in the first game of third set to deuce but was broken again as he struggled to return a Gaudio drop shot, which he hit into the net.
Gaudio broke again for 3-0 but after the Argentine received treatment for a cut and bloodied knee following a fall, Hewitt came back to break serve to love and held for 2-3.
But the fightback was short-lived with Hewitt left shaking his fist in fury as a series of mishits allowed Gaudio to hold serve in the sixth game for a 4-2 advantage.
In the seventh game Hewitt dropped his serve after handing Gaudio break point with a sloppy hit into the net, which the Argentian converted after another Hewitt blunder into the net.
And Gaudio did not hesitate taking the tie on his first match point when Hewitt hit long, to set up a meeting with either compatriot David Nalbandian, the eighth seed, or Brazilian three-time champion Gustavo Kuerten, for a place in the final.
”His defence is so good, specially today. He didn’t give me a lot of chances to attack him,” said Hewitt of his opponent, who made just seven forehand errors.
Nalbandian and Gaudio, winner of two ATP titles on clay at Barcelona and Mallorca last year, are bidding to become Argentina’s second winner after Guillermo Vilas in 1977. — Sapa-AFP