Players Under The Microscope / Ralph Ellis / 20 June 2008 / Leave a comment

Strawberries, cream, and the chance to make a few bob backing and laying in play during tight matches. Welcome back to Wimbledon! Betfair got to sit down with former champion Lleyton Hewitt to hear his thoughts on this year's big two weeks for tennis.

So Lleyton, another Wimbledon coming up - does 2002 when you won the Championship seem like yesterday or a long time ago?

A bit of both, I suppose. Some days it's different. When I come back here it doesn't feel like that long ago, no. But probably when you're away, when you're grinding out on the tour, it feels like a long, long time away.

So when you pull up in the car on Monday morning what do you feel? Just another year has gone by, or is it all still very special?

Again it's both of those. It's amazing how quickly the years go by nowadays. For me, it's one of my favorite tournaments, as I said, if not my favorite, Wimbledon. I love it. It's built more and more over the years. Since I obviously started doing well there and won matches, you really feel the tradition walking in there. To me it's one of the greatest places to play tennis. One of the reasons you keep playing the game, too.

So do you turn up feeling you're at home. Is the locker room attendant the same as years ago, for instance?

There's actually a new one that's taken over in the members locker room. There's a couple of Aussies in there, as well, which is nice. I feel pretty comfortable when I get there.

With injuries and so on you've slid down the rankings a bit, but several players - including Andy Roddick when he was talking to us - have said you could be a threat. Do you think so?

Yeah, I do. I feel like I'm definitely capable of playing against those big guys. I know what it takes to win seven matches there, as well. I feel over five sets that's where the best of me comes, in the Grand Slams. That's what I play for. My best tennis always comes out in those situations over five sets. So I'll go in there quietly confident.

When you won Wimbledon you were in the middle of a year and a half as world number one. Does defeat hurt you as much now as when you were almost invincible?

I think it does - probably more so because with a couple of my losses this year I've been playing injured, not being a hundred percent out there. That's probably more disheartening in a lot of ways because I felt like I've been hitting the ball extremely well, but haven't been a hundred percent out there to be able to compete. For me competing is one of my biggest assets. So that's the tough thing.

So when you used to go out there as world number one we assume you thought you would win every match?

Yeah, well I still go out in every match and think I can win. Doesn't always work that way but I still maintain that, absolutely. I think I've done it enough times against the best players in the world. Last year I was one point away from beating Nadal on clay and one point away from beating Djokovic at Wimbledon, and a couple of points away off beating Federer at Cincinnati on hard courts. When I put it all together, I'm not too far away. Got to get my body right first. That would make life a lot easier.

How big a part does confidence play in your sport? Lots of other sportsmen we talk to tell us how it makes a huge difference to them.

I think confidence has a lot to do with winning. You watch a guy like Federer, Nadal, these guys, even Djokovic now, when you are confident, win a lot of big matches, you get in those situations, you're sort of on autopilot out there. Especially Federer backs himself every time when he gets in a tight situation. That just comes from self belief and confidence. He's been able to do it against the best guys for a number of years now. It's second nature to him.

Towards the end of the time when you were world number one there must have been a period where people started chipping an odd result against you here or there. That's happened to Federer this year. Will that make an impact on him, do you think?

It's hard to say. Obviously a guy like Djokovic is young. Nadal is young, but he's been around for a lot of years now. Djokovic is coming up, he's played pretty good tennis against Roger when they've played on all surfaces. You know, you watch these young guys, even Andy Murray has played well against him, a young guy. But Roger still does it in the big tournaments when it really counts. That's why he's still No. 1.

What's it like when that bit of invincibility you built up is suddenly being chipped away?

That's tough to describe. The game always keeps improving. For me, even when I was number one I felt like there were still areas of my game I could work on and improve. It's something I've still been trying to do over the last couple of years, but I've had hiccups with a couple of niggling injuries that I haven't been able to get it right in back to back matches, really. To be honest Roger took the game to a new level after my spell. I was number one and then Andy Roddick took over for a couple of months, but after that Roger just took the whole sport. It's a sign of how great he's been that Rafa hasn't got there yet - I think he is extremely unlucky not to have gotten to number one so far.

So is he the next in line to make the big challenge?

Personally I'd hope so because he's a great guy. What he's done, how he plays on all surfaces, he deserves to be world No. 1. There's no doubt that his name should be up there with the greats of the game.

We've got a £50 bet for a charity to say thanks for your time.

I'll put that to Cancer Research, and take a long distance bet at [1.53] that Australia will retain the Ashes next year.

Tags: Andy Murray, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Wimbledon betting