Hewitt Survives Three-Set Thriller

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Top seed Lleyton Hewitt survived a three-set thriller against Xavier Malisse to get his 2005 Stella Artois Championship campaign off to a winning start.

The three-time champion dropped the first set but recovered to win 6-7(3), 7-5, 7-5, showing no signs of the recent foot and rib injuries that have kept him out of the game since March.

Hewitt came into the match - his first since the final of the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells - with a 3-1 head-to-head lead against Malisse. The first set went with serve until the tie-break, and it was Malisse who took it 7-3 with some inspired baseline play.

However, the former Wimbledon and US Open champion Hewitt immediately hit back, breaking Malisse's serve in the opening game of the second set. Although the Belgian broke to level at 4-4, Hewitt's persistence paid off as he broke for the second time in the 11th game and closed out the set to force a decider.

The final set went with serve until Hewitt got the crucial break to lead 6-5, making no mistake as he completed his victory in 2 hours, 38 minutes.

"I knew it was going to be a tough match going into it," said Hewitt. "Xavier played extremely well yesterday [against Lee] in the parts that I saw, and he's a lot better player when his mind's on the job than his ranking suggests. It was pretty slow out there as well today, so it was hard to hit a lot of winners against him. But I was pretty happy to get a lot of rhythm out there today at least."

Meanwhile, fourth seed Radek Stepanek also had a tough second round match, needing three sets to overcome French qualifier Gregory Carraz. Stepanek eventually booked his place in the third round with a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 victory in 1 hour, 44 minutes.

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