Cincinnati: Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt saved two match points before beating 12th seed Robin Soderling of Sweden 3-6, 7-6, 6-4 on Tuesday to reach the second round of the Cincinnati Masters.
The Australian, who has climbed back up the rankings to No. 42 having slipped outside the top 100 earlier this year, stared defeat in the face in the second-set tiebreak but battled back to set up a clash with German Benjamin Becker.
"It was always going to be a tough match," Hewitt said in a courtside interview. "He had a great run at the French Open and also at Wimbledon, it took Roger Federer to beat him in both. He's a high seed here so for me it's nice to get through."
Soderling's heavy groundstrokes were too much for Hewitt in the first set but as the match wore on the former Wimbledon and US Open champion began to get a foothold in the match.
The Swede held match points at 6-5 and 8-7 in the tiebreak but Hewitt held firm and after breaking in the first game of the deciding set, he held on for victory after two hours nine minutes.
Eleventh seed Fernando Verdasco was another first-round loser, beaten 7-6, 7-6 by fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who now plays Russian Mikhail Youzhny, a 7-5, 6-2 winner over Romania's Victor Hanescu.
Italian Andreas Seppi secured a second-round meeting with Rafael Nadal by seeing off Czech Jan Hernych 3-6, 6-4, 6-1.
Frenchman Gilles Simon, at No. 9, is the highest seed scheduled to play later, taking on Russian Igor Andreev in a second-round match.
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