Roddick fights his way past Hewitt in a five set thriller

Before Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt stepped on court for their quarter-final showdown, they showed an interview from Roddick describing what it feels like to play against Hewitt.

"It's a fight. Everything is a fight. Lleyton's not going to give you anything. A lot of guys you can get on top of, you can get on top of their game, you can look for holes in it. Lleyton doesn't really have a lot of holes. He's pretty solid off both sides. He volleys well. You're definitely not going to get on top of him mentally."

That's what the match turned out to be, a battle between two seasoned professionals on the tour, two guys that know exactly how to play the big points pushing each other to find their best tennis when they needed it most. Hewitt hasn't enjoyed as much success as he would have liked the last couple of years, but mentally and subsequently strategically his game yesterday brought back memories of what it was like when he was near the top of the game.

In the recent couple of years, Hewitt had reverted to a slightly more defensive game, a product of the hesitancy which often affected his game. More than anything, I felt watching Hewitt playing well, suddenly his game looked far more simple than it had in recent times, more assured of himself and punishing short balls with more authority, quick to spot openings in the court as if it was obvious that he should hit it there.

Because of his amazingly consistent return of serve, his ability to dip returns at his opponent's feet and his excellent counterpunching abilities, he's able to create more opportunities for himself than most, as well as put his opponents under immense pressure. Players know when they play Hewitt that they have to attack against him, yet they know that if they don't put him away that he has them exactly where he wants them - in position to hit his targets, using pace and angle to redirect it with accuracy.

What Hewitt wants to do is to crush his opponents mentally, to have them feel like they've done everything they can in a point then to run it all down and turn it into a counterpunching winner right at the end. It's clear it's the kind of point he enjoys the most and he celebrated one of these with his loudest 'Come on' of the match.

But Roddick is mentally strong as well, and he was fully prepared for the battle. Roddick played almost a perfect match tactically, looking to keep Hewitt off-balance in a variety of ways. First there was the much-improved slice backhand, which worked great as an approach shot deep and skidding low after its bounce, but also to mix up the play in the baseline rallies.

When he hit through his backhand, he hit it as confidently as I'd ever seen with great accuracy, quick to go down-the-line whenever he sensed the opportunity to avoid getting pinned on the backhand corner. I feel like the slice backhand has made a major resurgence this tournament with Roddick, Haas, Murray now alongside Federer making the shot a very effective weapon on its own. In fact, that makes it all four semi-finalists that have utilised the slice backhand.

When Roddick was with Connors, it looked like Roddick was rushing the net, more with the intent of pouring pressure on his opponents but these days it's like he naturally finds himself up there, building up the point and thinking of a point as a whole rather than simply taking an aggressive mindset. It's as if he has earned the right to make it up there, rather than trying to bluff his way up there.

Roddick was in front almost the entire match long, and Hewitt looked down and out at the start of the fourth set but it went right down to the wire in the fifth set. In a way the match became somewhat aligned to their well-known reputations, Roddick as being an excellent front-runner and Hewitt being one of the best fighters on the tour.

What I liked most about the match were some of the amazing shots that both players came up with under pressure, Roddick in particular. Half-volleys that landed on the line and amazing depth on his groundstrokes, most surprisingly on the backhand side. Hewitt isn't as good as he used to be on the big points but he still has the heart.

It wasn't at all like a typical Roddick match, where you would expect one service break to seal the deal and that added the element of unpredictability to the match, and in turn it forced both Roddick and Hewitt to fight their way out of difficult situations. There was no room for cheap errors here. Hewitt started off hesitantly in his first service game costing him the first set, then it turned into an epic battle after that. As the match progressed, Hewitt started to read Roddick's serve better winning more than half the points on Roddick's second serve and sometimes even being able to connect with the first serve on the middle of his racquet.

I was certain when the match was prolonged to a fifth set that it was going to turn into another Hewitt classic, one of those great comebacks that we were used to seeing purely because of his five-set record. But Roddick didn't allow himself to be deterred by the loss of the fourth set after the initial break of serve. Maybe his utmost respect for Hewitt's competitive abilities allowed him to remain positive in the fifth set, and in the end he was the deserving winner for playing the better tennis overall, for showing more creativity in his shot selection as well as executing his shots better and more consistently.