TENNIS/Australian Open: The conveyor belt of Swedish multiple champions - Bjorn Borg, Stefan Edberg, Mats Wilander - has ground to a halt, but there are still enough good players from that country to cause trouble for the current batch of favourites.
At last year's Australian Open, Thomas Johansson, currently injured, shocked everybody including himself by becoming one of the most unlikely of recent champions, and for several awkward moments yesterday it appeared Lleyton Hewitt's ambitions might be scuppered at the first hurdle by another unregarded Swede, Magnus Larsson.
The 21-year-old world number one duly reached the second round with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-7, 6-2 victory, but it took him more than three hours and it was not a match he will look back on fondly.
"I'm going to get better and better from now on," he promised, and he will need to.
Larsson (32), who in 1995 reached the world's top 10, is now outside the top 150 and had to qualify here. His career has been a tale of missed opportunities and injury, but he still has a serve and forehand capable of doing damage. Hewitt, perhaps feeling the pressure, had a rough jolt in the second and fourth sets.
"Lleyton has no big weapons and if it was not for his fighting spirit he would be no different from many of the other guys," said Larsson.
That sounded like a damning critique, but the Swede did not mean it to be. He made it clear how much he respected Hewitt. He stressed that the Australian thoroughly deserved his world ranking and likened his style of play to that of Wilander, the winner of seven slams in 1982-88 and three-time Australian champion.
Hewitt was flattered by the comparison and returned the compliment, saying: "I knew Magnus wouldn't be scared of the situation. He played incredibly well - he was the toughest (qualifier) I could have drawn."
Of all the players currently in the top 10, Hewitt is the most difficult to beat over five sets. On the way to winning Wimbledon last year he beat Holland's Sjeng Schalken after being two breaks down. "One of the reasons I'm world number one is that I train incredibly hard," he said. "Plus my never-say- die attitude."
The Swede acknowledged that in the first, third and fifth sets he had been well beaten. "Maybe six or seven years ago I might have won," he added ruefully.
All of Hewitt's main rivals in the top half of the draw - Marat Safin of Russia, Roger Federer of Switzerland, Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic and the American Andy Roddick - won. The main casualty of the second day was Alex Corretja, the 15th seed, who lost to his fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 6-3.
-Guardian Service
