Lleyton Hewitt returned to the courts at Melbourne Park on Wednesday, teaming up with fellow Australian Peter Luczak to win their first-round men’s doubles match.
Day three of the Australian Open marked the start of men’s and women’s doubles action.
Hewitt’s return was less than 24 hours after he brought adoring Australian tennis fans to their feet with a hard-fought round one singles victory over German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe on Rod Laver Arena.
Hewitt and Luczak, a wildcard entry, defeated German combination Matthias Bachinger and Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-5 6-3.
Another Australian combination, Matthew Ebden and Chris Guccione, weren’t so fortunate falling to new Indian combination Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna, the No.4 seeds, 5-7 6-4 6-4.
Polish pair Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski, the sixth seeds, defeated British pair Jamie Delgado and Jonathan Marray 6-4 6-4, while another British duo, Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins, the No.15 seeds, had better luck. Fleming and Hutchins defeated the American combination of Ryan Harrison and Ryan Sweeting 7-5 7-6(2).
American combination Scott Lipsky and Rajeev Ram, seeded 13th, won in two tough tiebreakers against Spanish pair Albert Montanes and Albert Ramos, and Italian pair Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini, the No.14 seeds, needed three sets to get past Rui Machado of Portugal and Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic, winning 5-7 6-4 6-2.
In the women’s doubles, reigning French Open champions Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka were one of the first teams to book a round-two berth. The Czech combination and No.7 seeds defeated fellow Czech player Klara Zakopalova and her Slovakian partner Magdalena Rybarikova 6-2 7-5.
World No.1 Leizel Huber and fellow American Lisa Raymond were also winners, defeating the dangerous combination of Spain’s Anabel Medina-Garrigues and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3 6-1 in under an hour.
Dual Grand Slam champions and No.3 seeds Vania King of America and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazhakstan also moved into the second round despite an early scare. The German combination of Kristina Barrois and Anna-Lena Groenefeld took the first set 6-1. King and Shvedova, who won the Wimbledon and US Open women’s doubles titles in 2010, bounced back to win the next two sets 6-3 6-1.
South African Natalie Grandin and Czech Vladimira Uhlirova, the No.9 seeds, were pushed by Romanian Sorana Cirstea and Czech Lucie Safarova. Cirstea, who knocked Australian hope Sam Stosur out of the women’s singles on Tuesday and Safarova started well, taking the first set 6-2. The experienced combination of Grandin and Uhlirova fought back, taking the final two sets 6-4 6-4 in just over two hours.
Two of the brightest prospects in women’s tennis, 15-year-old Australian Ashleigh Barty and 17-year-old Brit Laura Robson, were a wildcard entry into the draw. Their opponents were Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova and veteran American Jill Craybas. At age 37, Craybas was older than Barty and Robson’s combined ages. The teenage pair took the opening set, but proved no match for the more experienced combination in the end, with Cibulkova and Craybas winning 3-6 6-2 6-3.
Russian duo Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva, both top 20 singles players, showed their nous on the doubles court with a straight set win over France’s Alize Cornet and Olga Govortsova of Belarus, 7-6(4) 6-4. Kuznetsova is aiming to collect a second Australian Open women’s doubles title. She won her first in 2005 with Australian Alicia Molik.
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