Lleyton Hewitt produced some blistering
tennis Sunday, beating Gustavo Kuerten 6-1 6-1 to successfully defend his Tennis
Masters Series title at Indian Wells.
Australian Hewitt made it a weekend to remember just hours after his Belgian
girlfriend Kim Clijsters had taken the women's title by seeing off Lindsay
Davenport of the United States in her final.
Hewitt showed no mercy to three-times French Open champion Kuerten for his
19th career title and his fifth successful defence of an ATP crown.
The world number one moves to a 15-1 record for 2003, adding this title to the
one he won at Scottsdale earlier in the month.
"It's obviously fantastic for the both of us to come here, number one seeds,
everyone wants to knock you off," said Hewitt of the twin wins.
"But we've both been able to handle the pressure and situation very well this
week."
Hewitt, who conceded just three games in last year's final against Britain's
Tim Henman, administered the worst beating in the 28-year-old history of the
tournament on Sunday.
The reigning Wimbledon champion won his second title of the year in as many
tournaments and the 19th of his career. He raised his season record on the ATP
circuit to 15 wins from 16 matches.
Kuerten completed a 6-2 3-6 6-2 victory over 15th seed Rainer Schuettler in
the first match of the day.
With the win, he became the first man not from the United States to reach the
final of all four North American Tennis Masters Series events.
"It's always an interesting situation when you have someone coming off
playing this morning and being on Cloud Nine, making a Masters Series final, and
then have to turn around in an hour and a half and have to go out and play the
final," Hewitt said. "But it works both ways."
Hewitt took advantage of the situation.
"I was very aware Guga is capable of coming out and playing another good
match," he said. "I wanted to get off to an extremely good start. Today, to
me, he was pushing the panic button a lot to try and go for winners where he
didn't want to be in a lot of long rallies."
Kuerten admitted the task was too tough for him.
"It was very unusual, very tough as well," he said. "The best thing for me
right now is to forget this final."
E-mail Article 
Print-Friendly
Subscribe to RSS Feed 
Post to del.icio.us
Facebook