EON

Montreal  – Lleyton Hewitt relived his days of dominance with a 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 first-round win former rival Juan Carlos Ferrero on Monday at the Montreal Masters.

The battle of unseeded former number one players illustrated just how strong the draw is at the first big event in the run-up to the US Open.

Hewitt is now struggling to get back into the top 20 and currently stands 21st, while Ferrero is 17th.

The 26-year-old Australian ruled the game in 2001-2002, winning the US Open and Wimbledon while reigning atop the rankings. Spain’s Ferrero was the world’s top player and won the French Open in 2003 – all before the game’s current dominant force, Roger Federer, came into his own.

“A lot more players getting better,” said Hewitt. “Juan Carlos and I took it to another level, then Roger’s taken it to another level again.”

“A lot of things have changed,” he said.

Hewitt is making his run to the US Open which starts August 27 without the presence of new coach Tony Roche. The guru is home in Sydney awaiting the birth of a granddaughter.

He and Hewitt, whom he also coached during Davis Cup in years past, have been training together since Wimbledon.

“The last two and a half, three weeks has been good back at home,” said Hewitt, winner in Las Vegas last spring. “We’ve been training extremely hard. Rochey’s a tough taskmaster.”

“We’ve put in a lot of hours. He’s got some good ideas which you’re not going to see results straightaway, but hopefully they come in the next six months to a year,” he added.

Hewitt now leads Ferrero 6-3 in their career series with Hewitt winning their last meeting the 2004 Rotterdam final.

Federer and Rafael Nadal, winners of 18 of the last 23 Masters events, head the all-star list in a field which includes all of the top 20. The leading eight seeds benefit from byes into the second round.

Czech tenth seed Tomas Berdych became the first upset victim, losing 6-4, 7-5 to charged-up Dutch qualifier Robin Haase.

Haase, ranked 103, is playing for the fifth consecutive week. After losing to Marat Safin last Thursday in Washington, he came directly to Montreal to play qualifiers.

So great was the accumulated exhaustion factor that Haase was living on hope.

“Let’s hope I can qualify,” he said. “I couldn’t move that well. Luckily there are some good physiotherapists here, so they helped me.

The challenger fired 11 aces and broke twice on the way to victory in 90 minutes.

Berdych weighed in on the suspicious pullout last week by number five Nikolay Davydenko in Poland, which has sparked an ATP probe into possible match fixing.

The Betfair online agency suspended payouts on a second-round match which the Russian lost as he quit with a foot injury in the third set against Martin Vassallo-Arguello after around seven million dollars in bets swung to the Argentine after Davydenko won the opening set.

Berdych recalled an eye-opening talk given to ATP players last March at a meeting in Miami. “I think this is much worse … than the doping,” he said. “Imagine if you have a situation that they come to you and they give you the offer with money and tell you: ‘If you lose this match, you gonna get whatever.’”

“You say, Okay, right, this is a bad tournament. It happens once, and they’re gonna come again another tournament and you’re going to say, ‘No, I don’t want to do it, I’m going to play,’ he said.

“Then the problem starts.”

After play was delayed two hours due to rain, Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka earned an early victory over Lee Hyung-taik of South Korea 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

Spanish 16th seed David Ferrer beat Ernests Gulbisof Latvia 6-2, 6-1.