Hewitt [1], the two-time Grand Slam & Masters champion, won only two ‘Masters 1K’ events in his career – both at Indian Wells, displaying superb performance on each occasion. Especially the second scoreline was sensational because Kuerten advanced to the final defeating five quality opponents and seemed to have tools to beat Hewitt on the slow Californian court, the most resembling clay-courts in terms of the pace of play. Destroying Kuerten [24] in just 61 minutes, the 22 year-old Hewitt notched his 12th consecutive win. At the time no-one could imagine that it’d be his last triumph in a big event. The following week Hewitt suffered a shocking defeat to a Spanish veteran Francisco Clavet (4-6, 4-6 in Miami) and never came back to that level of the Indian Wells finals. “It was a lot closer than the scoreline showed,” Hewitt said kindly on his fourth straight win over Henman [11]. There was 1-all in both sets, in the 2nd set Henman had a break point in the 3rd game.
2002
Points won by each set: | 25-13, 36-26 |
Points won directly behind the serve:
10 % Hewitt – 5 of 46
11 % Henman – 6 of 54
Hewitt’s route to his 14th title:
1 Carlos Moya 6-4, 6-4
2 Andrei Pavel 4-6, 6-3, 6-0
3 Jan-Michael Gambill 6-2, 6-4
Q Thomas Enqvist 6-4, 6-4
S Pete Sampras 6-2, 6-4
W Tim Henman 6-1, 6-2
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2003
Points won by each set: | 29-19, 28-14 |
Points won directly behind the serve:
25 % Hewitt – 10 of 40
12 % Kuerten – 6 of 50
Hewitt’s route to his 19th title:
1 Younes El Aynaoui 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 – 3 m.p.
2 Yevgeny Kafelnikov 6-3, 6-2
3 Guillermo Coria 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-3
Q Robby Ginepri 6-4, 6-2
S Vincent Spadea 7-6(5), 6-1
W Gustavo Kuerten 6-1, 6-1