HEWITT SHOWS TARANGO THE GRAND SLAM EXIT DOOR

Nyree Epplett

Wednesday, May 31, 2000

Talented young Australian Lleyton Hewitt disposed of tour veteran Jeff Tarango 7-6 (5) 7-6(3) 6-3 to advance to the second round on Wednesday. The singles win, coming in a gruelling two and a half hours, was Hewitt's first ever at Roland Garros, although he has played here only once before (last year when he lost in five sets to Martin Rodriguez). The triumph sets up a second round encounter against Germany's Markus Hantschk for the ninth-seeded Hewitt, who is experiencing his best year since turning pro in 1998. He's won three of his five career singles titles in the last five months, and his semi final showing in Rome three weeks ago stands him in good stead on the slow red clay in Paris. Although relatively small in stature (5'11" and 65kg), Hewitt nevertheless has proven a major headache for some of the game's giants - his scalps have included former French Open champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov as well as French Open finalist Alex Corretja. Marcelos Rios, Mark Philippoussis, Thomas Enqvist, Tim Henman and Tommy Haas have all been beaten by the gutsy Australian with the fire in his belly. In today's match, Hewitt pounded down 11 aces, unleashing his trademark lethal baseline game on Tarango, who committed an extravagant 73 unforced errors.