FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil – Lleyton Hewitt
beat world No. 2 Gustavo Kuerten 7-6, 6-3, 7-6 on Sunday to
send Australia into the semifinals of the Davis Cup.
The 20-year-old's win over the reigning French Open title
holder gave the 1999 champions a decisive 3-1 lead over Brazil.
"I feel almost speechless," Hewitt said afterwards. "That's
the best I've ever hit the ball and to have beaten Guga
(Kuerten) in his back yard in straight sets in these conditions
with 12,000 people booing you is an unbelievable feeling."
Australia, who hammered Brazil 5-0 at home in last year's
semifinals, will host Sweden in the last four after the Swedes
beat Russia 4-1.
Tiebreaks were again Brazil's undoing.
Kuerten and Jaime Oncins lost three as they crashed to a
straight sets defeat in Saturday's doubles to Hewitt and Patrick
Rafter, and Kuerten lost two more on Sunday.
Hewitt, who also beat Fernando Meligeni on Friday, completed
his three rubbers without losing a set and showed great maturity
in ignoring the distractions of a partisan crowd or around
10,000.
Kuerten was dejected after losing a 25-match winning run on
clay which stretched back to before last year's French Open.
Having won the Hamburg Masters Series event, Kuerten lifted
the French Open, won two Davis Cup matches and then won the
titles in Buenos Aires and Acapulco at the start of this year.
"This was one of my worst Davis Cup defeats and it makes me
very down," he said.
"I didn't make the most of the chances I had in the first
set. He had the right answers at the right moments. I was
missing those small details which win matches.
"We are a bit frustrated and a bit irritated. This was a
revenge match for us and a chance to give us a semifinal tie at
home. We let a big opportunity go. He (Hewitt) played well under
pressure and a great part of their win was due to him."
Hewitt described the win as the greatest of his career.
"If I play like that, I'm going to be very hard to beat," he
said. "That is as well as I have played in my career so far."
Hewitt, who barely committed an unforced error, won nearly
all the baseline rallies and Kuerten also had trouble returning
serve.
The Brazilian had only three break points in the match, none
of which he converted.
Two went in the eighth game of the first set, leading to the
Brazilian nightmare of another tiebreak.
Hewitt raced to a 6-4 lead, lost one set point when he
doubled faulted but Kuerten hit a ball out on the next point in
another baseline exchange to settle it 7-5.
Hewitt then broke serve in the second game of the second
set, which he went on to wrap up 6-3 without ever looking in
trouble.
Kuerten finally came to life in the third set, serving
successive aces in the third game and getting to break point in
the sixth.
Hewitt saved, all further games went with serve and Hewitt
wrapped up yet another tiebreaker to the despair of the crowd.
The final match between Australia's Richard Fromberg and
Brazil's Alexandre Simoni was abandoned in the second set due to
rain.
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Rafter-Hewitt give Australia 2-1 lead over Brazil
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