Hewit, Melzer fall at first hurdle

Sports

Hewit, Melzer fall at first hurdle

Close

Lleyton Hewit and Jurgen Melzer have been defeated in the first round of Winston Salem tennis.

23 August,2011 11:12 am

Second seed Jurgen Melzer and Australian Lleyton Hewitt continued summer hardcourt losing streaks, to exit the Winston-Salem Open Monday.Hewitt, now ranked 165th after standing number one with two Grand Slam titles a decade ago, was defeated by Slovenian Blaz Kavcic 6-4, 7-6 (7/3).The 30-year-old Hewitt has been plagued this season with slow a recovery from foot surgery. He last played a month ago, winning a round in Atlanta before exiting. Hewitt went out in one hour, 40 minutes, losing serve four times.Melzer, a French Open semi-finalist and Wimbledon doubles champion last year, went down 7-5, 6-3 to Russian Igor Andreev and has now lost in all three of his starts on the North American hardcourts.Andreev was joined in the third round by former Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis, who defeated American Ryan Sweeting 7-5, 6-1. Sweetings serve was broken five times.In first-round play at the event shifted from New Haven, where it formerly shared a week with the WTA, Austria lost its second player as Argentine Carlos Berlocq defeated Andreas Haider-Maurer.The 72nd-ranked Austrian, who lost the Vienna final to Melzer last autumn, retired injured against Berlocq to hand over a 7-5, 4-1 victory.Frenchman Julien Benneteau defeated Brazils Ricardo Mello 6-1, 6-3 while American qualifier Michael Russell beat Adrian Mannarino of France 6-4, 6-7 (3/7), 6-2.Andy Roddick heads the field in this former tobacco processing town. Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov takes the third seeding behind Melzer with American John Isner, who lives not far away in Greesboro, on fourth.Young American Ryan Harrison provided a good showing for the home nation as he beat Romanian Victor Hanescu 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.