MIAMI, March 22: Top seed Lleyton Hewitt crashed out of the Nasdaq-100 Open in Key Biscayne on Friday night after a stomach upset took its toll in his opening match.
The world number one struggled to find any kind of form and lost 6-4 6-4 to veteran Spaniard Francisco Clavet after throwing up for most of the previous night.
Clavet, a 34-year-old left-hander ranked 178th in the world, became the fourth-lowest ranked player to beat a world number one since 1973.
He took advantage of Hewitt’s 33 unforced errors in a match lasting just over an hour and a half and changed the pace cleverly on several occasions in the second set when Hewitt dropped his service three times.
Hewitt saved one match point on Clavet’s serve before hitting into the net again on the second.
Clavet’s big weapon was his forehand and he foiled Hewitt regularly through the second set with fierce passing shots close to the tramlines.
Clavet, who says this probably his last season on the men’s professional tour, moves on to a meeting in the last 32 against Lee Hyung-taik of South Korea.
Lee advanced with a 6-7 6-2 6-1 win over 25th seed Xavier Malisse of Belgium.