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  • Indian Wells Fourth Round: Mardy Fish vs. Lleyton Hewitt

    3/19/08 8:49 PM | Ricky Dimon
    - In a relatively surprising clash in the fourth round of the Pacific Life Open, unseeded Mardy Fish will take on 24th-seeded Lleyton Hewitt. Both players scored dominant victories on Tuesday to advance in Indian Wells.

    Fourth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko and No. 13 seed Mikhail Youzhny are gone thanks to the two men left standing in this eighth of the Pacific Life Open field, Mardy Fish and Lleyton Hewitt. Fish and Hewitt will do battle on Thursday in a fourth-round match that few could have expected when the draw was revealed. This will be only the second time the two have met head-to-head and the first encounter came way back in 2002 at Queen's Club, where Hewitt prevailed 7-5, 6-3.

    Fish is a much different player now, although still inconsistent. The American got all the way up to No. 22 in the world rankings last March, but a dismal summer stretch and a fall season that wasn't much better has left him with a current standing of 98th. Fish is beginning to turn things around, however, in 2008. He reached the third round of the Australian Open and promptly followed that up with quarterfinal appearances in both Delray Beach and San Jose. So far this week Fish has taken care of Florian Mayer, 31st-seeded Igor Andreev, and No. 4 seed Nikolay Davydenko without dropping a set.

    Other than his epic win over Baghdatis in Australia that ended after 4:30 in the morning, Hewitt has struggled for the most part this season. In Rotterdam he got caught looking ahead to a potential second-round clash with Rafael Nadal and lost to unheralded Andreas Seppi in a third-set tiebreaker. Most recently in Las Vegas, Hewitt took out slumping Marat Safin in round one before being stunned by Julien Benneteau. The Aussie is looking great so far in Indian Wells, however, having dispatched Las Vegas champion Sam Querrey 6-4, 6-3 and Youzhny 7-5, 6-1.

    Fish has a bigger serve and an all-around bigger game than Hewitt, but then again so do Querrey and Youzhny. The relatively slow hard court should give Hewitt a slight edge by allowing him to send back too many balls in the direction of his opponent. If Fish plays like he did against Davydenko, it's going to be a close, entertaining contest.

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