Hewitt ousted in first round of Countrywide
13th-ranked player falls to journeyman Goldstein
 Jae C. Hong / AP Lleyton Hewitt wipes his face during his first-round loss to Paul Goldstein at the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles on Tuesday. |
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LOS ANGELES - Paul Goldstein, a journeyman professional who has never cracked the top 50 on the ATP Tour, scored one of the biggest wins of his nine-year career Tuesday night, upsetting former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt, 6-4, 6-4, in the first round of the Countrywide Classic tennis tournament.
“I think it has to be one of my best matches,” Goldstein, 29, of San Francisco said. “In the past when I’ve been in position to win (a big match) I just want it so bloody bad I’d lose the ability to execute. Today I was able to maintain that calm demeanor and execute.”
Goldstein, who hasn’t won more than one match at any tournament since mid-April, used the combination of consistent groundstrokes and well-timed advances to the net to beat the second-seeded Hewitt for the first time in five meetings. He took the lead in the second set with a service break in the fifth game, then fought off two break points to hold serve for 5-3 and closed out the match with his eighth ace. The win evened Goldstein’s record for the year at 14-14, with two of those losses coming at the hands of Hewitt in San Jose and Las Vegas.
“I’d played him close three out of the four times,” said Goldstein, who credited his breakthrough win to a telephone conversation with his coach, Scott McCain.
“He said, ’You’ve got a chance to measure yourself against one of the best in the world. Just go out and take advantage of that opportunity,”’ Goldstein said. “That made me go out there with a little looser attitude, an enjoy-the-moment attitude.”
The 13th-ranked Hewitt, playing his first match since Wimbledon, said Goldstein “played well. He’s a guy you’ve got to get out there and beat. He was running a lot of balls down and didn’t give me a lot of cheap points. He played well on the big points; better than I did.”
Earlier in the day, Tommy Haas took another step toward regaining his early-season form with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Wayne Arthurs.
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He has won nine of 13 matches since reaching the semifinals at Halle, Germany.
“Sometimes it is tough to regain your top form, but not every day is the same,” Haas said. “I played a good match. I felt very solid on both wings. I had a good first-serve percentage (winning 27 of 31 points). I was playing solid and not making too many loose mistakes.”
The German broke for a 3-1 lead in the opening set and did so again to go up 5-4 in the second. He never faced a break point in the 58-minute match on the UCLA campus.
Two-time Grand Slam champion and former No. 1 Marat Safin, who’s also trying to regroup after an injury, moved into the second round with a 6-4, 7-5 win over American Mardy Fish.
Safin missed the second half of last year with a left knee injury and has reached just one semifinal this year. The Russian hasn’t made it past the second round in a tournament since then.
Safin will face No. 3 seed Fernando Gonzalez of Chile in the second round. In other matches Tuesday, No. 7 Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia beat American Zack Fleishman, 7-5, 7-5; George Bastl of Switzerland was a 6-3, 7-6 (1) winner over Nicolas Mahut of France; and Lars Burgsmuller of Germany outlasted American Michael Yani 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; Scott Oudsema of the U.S. beat Benjamin Becker of Germany, 7-5, 6-3; and Sam Querrey of the U.S. beat countryman Vince Spadea, 7-5, 6-4.
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