Hewitt heroics put Oz in semifinals

20 July 2015 - 02:02 By Reuters

Ageing tour warrior Lleyton Hewitt ended a tumultuous week for Australian tennis by guiding his team into the Davis Cup semifinals yesterday with victory in the final singles against Kazakhstan. Australia will meet Britain for a place in their first final since 2003 after the hard-bitten former world No1 trounced Aleksandr Nedovyesov 7-6 (2) 6-2 6-3 in the Darwin sunshine."We had to rally together and find a way to get the win. I've always said some of my greatest wins were in the Davis Cup and some of my toughest losses were in Davis Cup so I'm going to enjoy this one. This is what dreams are made of," the Australian said.Hewitt's win completed a stirring fightback for Australia, who were 2-0 down after the opening day when young guns Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis, dubbed "the Special Ks" in Australia, both flopped in the singles.Australia's No1 Bernard Tomic was absent, booted from the team after a public tirade against the country's tennis administration at Wimbledon.But the controversial 22-year-old's arrest in Miami after a noisy hotel room party was to prove a huge distraction and followed further controversy earlier in the week when Kyrgios rounded on the country's high-performance chief Pat Rafter with a stinging post on Twitter.Hewitt will retire after the next Australian Open in January, so guiding his team into the final four for the first time since 2006 will be a treasured moment for a player who has bled for his country since his 1999 Davis Cup debut. ..

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