You have to give credit to Lleyton Hewitt.  For some reason, Federer’s generation produced players whose bodies have broken down, most notably, Tommy Haas, but yes, Lleyton Hewitt.  Many of his generation’s stars play infrequently now or are retired: Hewitt, Haas, Ferrero, Nalbandian.  Some of his generation continue to plod along working in the top 50.  Many of them Federer played at Wimbledon: Benneteau, Youzhny, Malisse, and others in that era (the Rochus brothers, Davydenko).  There have been some late bloomers in Ferrer, Fish, and there’s Roddick, who has been the second most resilient, but has also had his issues staying healthy.

Hewitt had surgery on his hip in 2008, then surgery on his foot in 2011, and is recently coming off a second foot surgery.  Hewitt has never shied from playing ATP 250 events to get his ranking back up so he could be competitive later on.

To me, Hewitt was the “better” Michael Chang.  Hewitt said his role model was not one of the many Aussies, but instead, Mats Wilander.  Wilander himself said that Borg was not his idol, but Jimmy Connors, that he always had more fire than the icy Borg.  Chang struggled a bit with keeping his shots deep.  Hewitt, by contrast, kept his shots very deep, had good consistency, and had the temperament of someone like Connors.

That style began to be replaced by a more modern, harder hitting, angle driven style.  If Hewitt lacks one thing, it’s power.  He hits hard enough to prevent himself from getting too defensive, but not hard enough to generate winners on a regular basis.  This makes his life a bit more challenging, as he needs to play more like Ferrer, or the other player that’s came from his generation, David Nalbandian.

Lleyton Hewitt hasn’t played Newport in more than a decade.  However, with Olympic tennis at Wimbledon coming up, Hewitt wanted to get his game in gear for another run.  John Isner came into Newport looking for the same thing as last year: momentum.  Last year, he admitted he had a poor clay season and a poor Wimbledon.  He was lacking confidence, and hadn’t won back-t0-back matches since Houston before the European clay circuit.

Newport’s draw had a few strong players, but it was weak enough that everyone Hewitt played had triple figure rankings (although some may have been higher).  Heck, Hewitt himself had a triple figure ranking.

Isner would be the highest ranked player that Hewitt had played thus far.  Although Isner had never beaten Hewitt in their two meetings, he had to feel good about this one.  Hewitt struggled in a three setter against Rajeev Ram, a player that’s similar in style to Isner (except he serves and volleys a lot more).  Isner had the bigger serve, so that would pay off.

Despite this, Isner’s groundies were looking a bit iffy with Hewitt able to move Isner around.  However, Isner, as he always does, defused the threats with big serving.  So, the first set went to a tiebreak.  Isner managed to win a few long rallies, and take several mini-breaks, and win the tiebreak easily.  Isner then secured a break in the second set and won that 6-4.

In Stuttgart, Janko Tipsarevic won the title over Juan Monaco, needing three sets, showing the improvements he made last year are still keeping him in the winner’s circle.

In Umag, Croatia, Marin Cilic finally won a title beating Marcel Granollers handily 64 62.  This is his second title of the year after winning Queen’s when David Nalbandian was ejected because he kicked a board that injured a linesman.

Finally, David Ferrer won the title in Bastad, Sweden, a title he was runner-up at the previous year.  He thumped Almagro 2 and 2.

Next week, two clay court events and the start of the US Open series.  In Switzerland, there’s Gstaad (not to be confused with Bastad just concluded) and in Germany, it’s Hamburg, the tournament that was demoted to ATP 500 and replaced by the blue clay of Madrid.  In the US, Atlanta starts the US Open series.  The US Open series will go to Los Angeles, then Washington DC (held during the Olympics), then there is Toronto and Cincinnati heading to the US Open.