like I came out and played well. Right From the start, I was able to get up an early break which made life a bit easier through that first set. You know I felt like I came out and I was ready to go right from the start, which was a key out there today, because Lu’s a good ball-striker and hits a lot of winners out there. And it’s hard to be really aggressive against him.

Question: How frustrating in the second set… you go up a break and he breaks you right back.

Lleyton Hewitt: Yea, right. It’s always frustrating when you’re up a set and a break; and then you get back on level terms towards the end of the second set instead of closing it out. But he’s that kind of player that when he catches fire, he’s very hard to hold off. He’s able to hit a lot of flat winners out there. He’s a great ball-striker from both sides: the forehand and the backhand. So for me it was a matter of hanging in there and weathering the storm. And you know, I played a pretty good tiebreaker. And he was the more up and down player in the tiebreaker, and I was a lot more solid.

Question: In the tiebreaker, you never felt you weren’t in some kind of control?

Lleyton Hewitt: Um, well early on I was down a minibreak 2-1 and then I was able to get that back, which was the key. So I finished off the tiebreaker pretty well, which was nice.

Question: Describe last week; as far as what you did in San Jose… just what that meant…

Lleyton Hewitt: It was nice to make the quarters. I lost to a quality player; (Juan Martin ) del Potro. But I didn’t actually think my ball striking was as good as I would have liked it last week, which was a little bit frustrating. Even in the first two matches that I won, I didn’t feel like I was feeling the ball. And maybe that was because I had a few weeks off after I was done in the Aussie Open. Yea, it was a totally different surface as well. It wasn’t a high bouncing court whosoever last week. So, you know, I felt a lot better once I got here; on this kind of hard court.

Question: The difference is it just bounces higher?

Lleyton Hewitt: It’s a more true court; this. Last week it was laid temporary court. So it was a lot of dead spots on the court as well. I think you got to feel pretty confident in your ball striking on that kind of court to trust it. You know, if some of those spots, you know, don’t come off extremely well; it’s hard to be sort of fighting it out there sometimes. Where as, you know, these courts are true hard courts.

Question: No problems with the hand? That was late last year; the hand injury…

Lleyton Hewitt: Yea, the hand’s fine.

Question: I guess, you had the good run in Memphis a couple of years ago when you were here and had not been here before. Was that making the decision easier to come back here to Memphis?

Lleyton Hewitt: Absolutely, you know it’s always nice to come back to places where you’ve played well in the past. You know what to expect as well. So, I was surprised how well I played here two years ago, because coming into it, I’d only really played the Australian Open and then San Jose. I lost two tough first rounds at both those events after I’d had hip surgery at the end of the year before. So for me, it gave me a lot of confidence for the rest of that year.

Question: Made you wonder why you didn’t pick it earlier? Just didn’t fit your schedule?

Lleyton Hewitt: Yea, it’s always, you know… my schedule… obviously you try to work round the grand slams and masters series, and work backwards from that to, you know, how many matches you want to get and the kind of places you play at. Yea unfortunately, it’s better to play at some stage.