Sport - Tennis

I draw a lot of emotion and energy from the ‘Fanatics’: Hewitt

WIMBLEDON: The group of yellow-clad Australian fans ‘Fanatics’ have been a mainstay at Hewitt’s matches for years, and are out in force at Wimbledon — providing by far the loudest cheers of any supporters at the tournament.

“They’ve been fantastic. I draw a lot of emotion and energy from those guys out there,” Hewitt said on Monday after rallying from two sets down to beat Radek Stepanek for a spot in the quarterfinals.

“Especially in today’s (Monday) match when you had to dig deep, try to find a way out of it, you know they’re going to be there for the long haul.”

The fans have definitely lived up to their nickname so far, with the umpires having to ask them to keep quiet on several occasions.

Hewitt doesn’t see it as having an unfair advantage, however.

“I think they’ve been great,” the 2002 champion said. “It’s been a good atmosphere. Yeah, for an opponent I’m sure they’re not thrilled about it... But then again, they’re not in their face either.”

Belarusian teenager Victoria Azarenka is promising to control her temper better after yelling at the umpire during her win over No. 10 Nadia Petrova on Monday.

The 19-year-old Azarenka, who has been touted as a future Grand Slam winner, told the umpire she was “ruining the match” after what she thought were bad line calls during the second set of her 7-6, 2-6, 6-3 victory in the fourth round.

“I’m an emotional player, and I’ve always been like that,” Azarenka said. “Just sometimes I get a little bit upset with a few bad calls, which there clearly was today.

“I just have to keep trying to calm myself down sometimes, but you never know. It’s not like sitting in the living room and watching TV. You’re playing in 35 Celsius degrees, it’s hot, you’re playing a close match, so it’s tough. It’s very easy to talk about how people react or whatever.”

She doesn’t want to remain too calm on the court, saying she sometimes plays better when she’s angry.

“As long as I don’t really go crazy with my emotions,” she said. “I’m always pumped up.”

Azarenka said she had not apologised to the officials after the match.

“I actually felt bad because I reacted pretty bad for that,” she said. “But as I said, sometimes it’s really tough to control your emotions when the match is really tight, and some bad call comes up… I just really have to learn how to do it, and hopefully next time I’ll do it.”

Novak Djokovic gets a second chance to prove that youth can win over experience when he plays Tommy Haas in the Wimbledon quarterfinals.

Haas beat Djokovic in the final of the Gerry Weber Open this month, denying the Serb his first grass-court title. He plans to avenge that loss on Wednesday, when the youngest remaining player in the men’s draw takes on the oldest.

The 22-year-old Djokovic said he still hadn’t adjusted properly to grass when he played the 31-year-old Haas at Halle.

“I had some good matches and some really bad matches, ups and downs in that tournament,” Djokovic said. “I was still getting used to the grass and movement, the way I should play. But here it’s a different story, you know. I already played really well last two, three matches. Quite confident.”

“Tommy, he’s certainly a great player, and he’s playing really well lately, taking Roger to five sets in the French Open, winning Halle, and here some marathon matches,” Djokovic said. “He’s very aggressive, you know. He plays serve and volley. He goes for both serves. He’s going to put obviously a lot of pressure on me, so I just have to be patient and wait for the chances.” — AP

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