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| | Thursday, 4 July, 2002, 15:04 GMT 16:04 UK Hewitt books Henman date Hewitt had to summon all his fighting qualities World number one Lleyton Hewitt scraped into the semi-finals with a bruising five-set victory over Holland's Sjeng Schalken. Having survived 6-2 6-2 6-7 1-6 7-5, top seed Hewitt will now meet Britain's Tim Henman, the fourth seed, in Friday's semi-finals. A relieved Hewitt said: "I thought I should have been in the locker room a long time ago.
"Sjeng played some great tennis and in the end my fighting spirit got me through." After blowing four match points to claim a routine 6-2 6-2 7-5 win, the 21-year-old Hewitt was forced to dig deeper than he could ever have imagined after the first two sets. With Hewitt still fretting over 11 wasted break points in the third set, Schalken made the most of his reprieve - and an umpire's over-rule on a tight line call - to win the third-set tiebreak. "I was on fire for the first two sets," said Hewitt. "I must have had about 500 break points in the third set but to his credit I didn't have too many chances on those break points. "And the match turned - he got confident, stopped making mistakes and it turned into a dog fight."
Having given up the first set of his 2002 Wimbledon challenge, the Australian went to pieces in the fourth set. He lost his serve to give the 25-year-old Schalken a 3-1 lead, which he soon converted into a 5-1 cushion with another break before levelling the match. Schalken then broke Hewitt again to lead the final set 2-1, but the tenacious Australian struck back and at 5-5 it was Schalken who blinked first - hitting wide after nearly four hours on court. | |
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