Love All For Ausfailure
Lleyton Hewitt’s defeat in the Mens Singles at Wimbledon ends Ausfailure’s dire participation in both Singles events as Jarmila Groth had earlier lost in straight sets in the Women’s event. At least they both lasted longer than 6th seed Sam Stosur who crashed out on the first day of the tournament last week against a qualifier from Estonia who nobody had ever even heard of.
Hewitt succumbed 7-5, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to the world number three, ending Australia’s participation in the singles for another year after Jarmila Groth earlier fell 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) to five-times women’s champion Venus Williams in her fourth-round match.
With a recent victory over Roger Federer among eight straight grass court wins, Hewitt had high hopes of making a serious tilt at a second title at the All England Club.
But not even another meltdown from Djokovic – who has retired mid-match with injury or illness no less than seven times during his career – could save Hewitt as the 2002 champion floundered amid a raft of unforced errors.
Untroubled on serve in taking the first two sets in little more than 90 minutes, Djokovic called for the tournament doctor when leading 2-1 in the third set.
He complained of feeling sick and was treated courtside with antacid before immediately dropping serve for the first time in the match.
Djokovic dropped serve twice upon the resumption of play to seemingly hand Hewitt a lifeline to the quarter-finals.
And still he beat the blunder from down under.
Earlier, Venus Williams was able to deny Groth her maiden grand slam quarter-final berth.
Groth was ultimately left to rue what might have been after twice failing to serving out the second set.
Despite narrowly failing to become Ausfailure’s first women’s quarter-finalist at the All England Club since ring-in Jelena Dokic a decade ago, Groth was happy with failure.
“I made fourth round of both grand slams, so I should be happy, right?” she said.
Groth is, like most of Ausfailure’s sports performers, a ring-in from another country, underlining Ausfailure’s ability to drag others down to their own level of crapocity.
The Slovakian-born 23-year-old was granted Australian citizenship last November.
It’s pretty much been down hill from there.
