Hewitt battles past Wawrinka in Cincinnati

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Cincinnati, Aug 15: Former world number one Lleyton Hewitt battled past Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland 7-5 3-6 7-6 in a gruelling first-round match at the Cincinnati Masters today.

The Australian let slip a 3-0 lead in the deciding set and had to save four break points in the seventh game before squeezing through in just under three hours.

''I'm a little bit relieved,'' Hewittt said in a courtside interview. ''He obviously played a great match, really took it to me and I was lucky to get through in the end.'' Hewitt won a first set that included five breaks of serve before world number 49 Wawrinka hit back to level the match and then recovered from 3-0 down to 3-3 and force 0-40 on the Australian's serve.

But Hewitt held serve and then snatched the tiebreak 7-5 to set up a clash against eighth seed Richard Gasquet of France.

French qualifier Julien Benneteau set up a clash with top seed Roger Federer by beating Russian Dmitry Tursunov 6-4 3-6 6-3.

Reuters >