What can we expect from Lleyton Hewitt, or should we expect anything at all?

Having recently turned 28 last month, Lleyton Hewitt is now approaching the final stages of his career, one that presents different challenges and expectations. Hewitt has had a long and illustrious career that has spanned 12 years at the ATP level achieving success at an early age. He captured his first career title at the age of 16 in his home town of Adelaide in 1998 and became the youngest player to end the year at world number 1 in 2001.

Hewitt has always been known as determined and confident, a guy that fully believes in his abilities and where he belongs in the game, up there mixing it with the best of them. In interviews, over the last couple of years, he has always spoken highly of his goals and abilities. But with injuries hampering him and undergoing hip surgery at the end of last year, and his ranking taking a nosedive to the low 70s, he is now forced to take a different perspective of his near future.

In previous years, he may have known to do too much talking about his own prospects particularly with the Australian press. But this year is more about taking a more low-key approach and letting the tennis speak for itself. Thinking about the present only, and not getting ahead of himself as he may have in the past.

Initially I thought it was only a matter of time before Hewitt made his way back up to a point in the rankings where he would make direct entry into the majority of ATP events, but so far this year, he has done little to add to his ranking points. In the last few weeks, he lost in the first round to Yen-Hsun Lu in Delray Beach, what initially seemed like a good opportunity amongst a weaker field and a five-set loss to Danai Udomchoke in Davis Cup, more an indication of his poor form more than anything else given that he has always taken pride in representing his country.

With that track record in mind, I was interested to see how Hewitt would go in Indian Wells, one of Hewitt's favourite tournaments, the city where he has captured his lone two Masters Series shields. It was a rematch of this year’s first round five set Australian Open match against Fernando Gonzalez.

The initial signs were looking good, Hewitt looking confident and playing surprisingly aggressively, using the pace of the Gonzalez groundstrokes and changing directions far more than I could remember doing in recent times. Then the memories continued to flood back, seeing Hewitt's explosive movement how he would move quickly to move on top of those forehands and counterpunch them back sending them back at a lightning pace.

Using the pace of his opponents to hurt them, making up for the fact that he couldn't generate it himself that effectively, and his return of serve was a strength as well. He hadn’t lost as much movement as I remembered him doing, though now that the match has ended, I’m still sitting on the fence on this thought.

But I thought this aggressive mindset was like conceding that he didn't have that same rock solid consistency as he used to, and instead trying to make up for it in other ways. Besides, based on my experiences watching Hewitt’s matches in the last few years, playing conservatively has never guaranteed him any more consistency really - so why shouldn’t he back himself?

Hewitt raced away to a 5-1 lead in the first set in some part due to Gonzalez’s rustiness, sometimes mistiming forehands by large margins, closer to hitting the backboards than the baseline at times. Gonzalez hadn't played a competitive match since capturing the title in Vina Del Mar after the Australian Open, being hampered by a sciatic nerve injury.

Early on, even without watching Gonzalez in full flight, he looked like a potential threat. His forehand has to be one of the most intimidating shots in tennis, a shot that doesn’t only win him large amounts of points but one for opponents to be fearful of in another sense. It amazes me how little he seems to be rushed on that side given the massive backswing he has on it, one reason why he can send them so far long on occasions.

He wasn’t consistent enough initially but it was almost impossible to tell which shots he was going to have a crack at, as if he just decides to unload on it at random times. It sometimes didn't matter that he had to half-volley a forehand right on the baseline, he’d try to change direction and send it down-the-line anyway while other times on a three-quarter court ball, he'd hit a more controlled crosscourt forehand with higher margin over the net. Regardless of how Hewitt was defending, if Gonzalez was going to pull off unexpectedly aggressive shots like that, Hewitt wasn’t going to get anywhere near it.

From 5-1 onwards in the first set, Hewitt started to get more into his comfort zone opting for a more high percentage brand of tennis, allowing Gonzalez that extra bit of time for set up for his shots. That shift of tactics, following a more predictable pattern of play in turn didn’t keep Gonzalez off balance enough and subsequently the match turned quickly in Gonzalez's favour winning six of the next seven games.

The start of the second set was a strange one, seeing Hewitt suddenly change tactics again quickly making his way to the net early in the point, before he had moved Gonzalez sufficiently out of court. Was this the sign of Hewitt trying to rediscover his aggressive tennis, but going about it the wrong way? His approach shots were often landing short in the court and he was suitably punished getting broken straight away.

He learned his lesson after that, and went back to basics, the roots of his game. It was like a repeat of the end of the first set, and the kind of tennis that I normally associate with Hewitt, moving his opponents around with his forehand more using his accuracy, rather than pace. He was no longer getting to the wide shots as effectively, though it was likely more to do with Hewitt’s preceding shots which were not as deep anymore.

It took for a while for Hewitt to slowly regain his depth and consistency but he started to regain some of his form in the third set, where the pair of them engaged in some entertaining rallies. Finally, it was both players playing good tennis at the same time. But in the end, Hewitt's errors proved to be costly, particularly in the crucial game where he lost serve missing three or so shots by small margins, perhaps aiming too close to the lines.

The statistics in the end showed that Gonzalez had cleaned up his game considerably in the latter two sets, even recording fewer unforced errors than Hewitt, as well as more winners of course. So after a promising start, it ended up being another early exit in a tournament for Hewitt.