Australian veteran Lleyton Hewitt is out of the US Open after suffering a sapping five-set fourth-round loss to Russian 21st seed Mikhail Youzhny.
Hewitt was twice within sight of his first quarter-final since 2006 before falling 6-3 3-6 6-7 (3-7) 6-4 7-5 in a tension-filled four-hour cliffhanger at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday.
The 2001 champion will long rue squandering a two-sets-to-one advantage and 4-1 and 5-2 leads in the fourth and fifth sets of a draining encounter played out in the hottest part of the day in New York.
In a seesawing contest, Hewitt trailed by a set and a service break before wrestling control only to let the match – and a likely quarter-final showdown with world No.1 Novak Djokovic – slip away.
From 4-1 up in the fourth set, Hewitt lost five straight games to allow Youzhny, a two-time semi-finalist in New York, to force the decider.
Hewitt dropped serve again in the opening game of the fifth set before halting Youzhny’s momentum with a break back for 1-1.
The 32-year-old had to hold his nerve from 15-30 down at 2-2 after seeking a medical timeout to have cuts to an elbow treated.
He held and was rewarded for his tenacity with what looked a decisive break the very next game for 4-2.
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Alas, after holding again, Hewitt was unable to serve out the match at 5-3 and paid the price as Youzhny roared back with some free-swinging tennis.
The Russian broke Hewitt again in the 11th game as Hewitt’s errors continued to mount.
Hewitt saved one match point but Youzhny finally closed out out the match after three hours and 58 minutes.
Hewitt carried a 5-1 winning record over 31-year-old Youzhny into the match against his career-long rival, but made a sluggish start in the hot and breezy conditions.
He dropped serve twice in the opening set and then double-faulted to be broken again early in the second.
But the dogged baseliner quickly broke back and then took out another of Youzhny’s service games with some superb net hustling that saw the Russian sprawling across the court.
With renewed confidence and with the crowd chanting support, Hewitt came into the net almost twice as often as Youzhny and the tactics worked brilliantly as he clinched the set to get back on level terms.
The standard – and the volatile Russian’s temperature – continued to rise with Hewitt’s down-the-line backhand winner after a 46-shot rally the highlight of the hour-long third set.
But from 4-1 in front in the fourth, Hewitt lost his way.
Youzhny will now face world number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia who breezed into the quarter-finals by beating Spain’s 43rd-ranked Marcel Granollers 6-3 6-0 6-0 in just 79 minutes at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
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Chinese fifth seed Li Na, the 2011 French Open champion, advanced to the US Open semi-finals for the first time on Tuesday with a 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 victory over Russian Ekaterina Makarova.
“I’m so happy,” Li said. “After losing the second set I was a little disappointed because I was 4-2 up in the tie-breaker, but I told myself point by point to try my best on the court.”
Li reached a final-four showdown against the winner of a later match between 16-time grand slam champion Serena Williams, who is seeking her fifth US Open crown and ninth title of the year, and Spanish 18th seed Carla Suarez Navarro, who has never won a title.
“I will lie down in bed and take some chips and watch,” Li said.
Li fired 44 winners to only 15 by Makarova, who upset Williams in last year’s Australian Open fourth round but fell to 0-4 all-time against Li, who said her nerves kept her from being more aggressive and coming to the net.
“I was so nervous,” she said. “I wish I could do it more in the next round.”
Also advancing was two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, who reached the quarter-finals by beating Serbian 13th seed Ana Ivanovic 4-6 6-3 6-4 in a match postponed from Monday due to rain.
The 24-year-old second seed from Belarus took advantage of Ivanovic’s 42 unforced errors and broke the former world No.1 nine times in the match, winning despite surrendering seven breaks herself and hitting just 21 winners.
“There’s a lot of room to improve, but I don’t think that my serve was a deal breaker of those games I lost,” Azarenka said.
Azarenka, who lost to Williams in last year’s US Open final, will play for a semi-final spot against Slovakia’s 48th-ranked Daniela Hantuchova, with whom she has split four career meetings.
“She’s playing the best tennis of her life,” Azarenka said. “She is really playing well and has a lot of confidence. We hit with each other a lot so there will be no surprises there.”
Azarenka, a semi-finalist in five of the past seven Grand Slams, defeated world number one Williams in the final at Cincinnati in the last big US Open tune-up event, securing her role as the main threat to Williams’ reign.
Either Williams, the reigning French Open champion, or Li, this year’s Australian Open runner-up, would become the oldest women’s champion in US Open history at age 31 with a triumph in Sunday’s championship match.
The total of five players over 30 in the quarter-finals was a US Open record and matched the all-time grand slam mark from the 1977 Australian Open.
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