Woodies give Aussies lead

Yesterday, Cedric Pioline beat teenager Lleyton Hewitt 7-6 (9-7), 7-6 (8-6), 7-5 in a three hour 40 minute thriller to lift hosts France to a 1-1 tie with Australia on the first day of the Davis Cup final.

Pioline was cheered on by a sellout 10,000 crowd as he beat Hewitt in a match played in an atmosphere more reminiscent of a prizefight than a tennis match.

Virtually every point was fiercely contested and Pioline, a veteran of France’s 1996 cup-winning side, took fully one hour and 22 minutes to win the first set.

The Australian led 3-1, but the Frenchman rallied to force a tie-breaker in which Hewitt saved three set points and squandered one of his own with a double fault — before the Frenchman prevailed 9-7.

Pioline led 4-2 in the second set of a tense baseline slugging match before Hewitt fought back to force the tie-breaker. Hewitt saved two set points but Pioline took the breaker 8-6 after two hours and 30 minutes of extraordinary tension.

Pioline, a two-time Grand Slam finalist, got two breaks for a 5-1 lead in the third set but the feisty Hewitt came roaring back to 5-5 saving a match point in the eighth game.

The Frenchman gathered his wits one last time, however, and won the final two games against an opponent who simply didn’t play the big points well enough.

Philippoussis’ win stunned into near-silence – with the exception of around 1,000 noisy Australians, almost all of whom were decked out in their National colours of gold and green.

The Australian player said he had so many “butterflies” before the match that he couldn’t eat. “I tried to eat something and I couldn’t,” he said. “My stomach was growling. Then, once I was out there I felt surprisingly calm. I knew what I had to do and played some solid tennis.”

RESULTS :

Mark Philippoussis (Australia) bt Sebastien Grosjean 6-4, 6-2, 6-4
Lleyton Hewitt (Australia) lost to Cedric Pioline 6-7 (7-9), 6-7 (6-8), 5-7
Mark Woodforde & Todd Woodbridge bt Fabrice Santoro & Olivier Delaitre 2-6 7-5 6-2 6-2 .