It was a bitter pill to swallow: Hewitt

But the pugnacious Australian admitted that coming so close to fulfilling his childhood dream only to fail at the last obstacle was a desperately bitter pill to swallow.

“I’m sure in a couple of days I’ll look back and think that it’s been a great achievement,” said Hewitt.

“I’ll have no regrets, and I’ve put absolutely everything into this tournament. I’ll be able to walk out with my head held high.

“But right at the moment, I’m human and I’m disappointed. You know, to come that close, train so hard to put yourself in a position … It’s hard to take at the moment.

“But my game’s definitely better than where it was 18 months ago — making a US Open final, a Masters Cup final, and now an Australian Open final, I’m obviously doing something right. It just would have been nice to get one of them.”

Hewitt said he had been powerless to respond when Safin raised his game after a disastrous first set, when he was paralysed by nerves and succumbed in a little over 20 minutes.

“I feel like I got out of the blocks well but he hadn’t hit his stride either,” Hewitt said.

Hewitt denied that a foot fault call that went against him when he was broken in the seventh game of the third set had affected the outcome. The Australian had raged at a line official following the ruling, earning a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct. It also heralded the beginning of the end for Hewitt.

Numbers game

• 500,000 attendance mark reached for the sixth year in a row, up more than 20,000 on last year.

• The highest one-day attendance in history when 60,069 spectators came to Melbourne Park on January 22.

• Hungry patrons ate 31,700 buckets of French fries, 13,700 hot dogs, 11,714 meat pies and drank 111,000 espresso coffees.

• The tournament’s 88 courtesy cars drove 340,000 kilometers.