TENNIS: The iconic and traditional All England Lawn Tennis Club has never shone brighter as the Olympic spirit and colour encompassed the hallowed Wimbledon precinct for the opening eight days of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Nineteen of the top 20 men and 18 of the top 20 women returned to Wimbledon just over two weeks after the completion of the Wimbledon Grand Slam and Australia was represented by six athletes - triple Olympians Lleyton Hewitt and Samantha Stosur, dual Olympian Casey Dellacqua and debutants, Bernard Tomic, Jarmila Gajdosova and Anastasia Rodionova.  

Hewitt,31, led the way for the Aussie’s defeating Ukrainan Sergiy Stakhovsky (ranked 94) in the opening round 6-3 4-6 6-3 and Croatia’s 13th seed Marin Cilic in straight sets 6-4 7-5 before going down fighting on centre court in the third round to world number 2 Novak Djokovic (SRB) 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.

“At a set and 5 all you are definitely in it in a best of three match,” said Hewitt.  “I threw everything I had at him and in the end he was too good but I played really good tennis ... I took it took him.” 

Hewitt also reached the quarter finals of the mixed doubles with Samantha Stosur where they were defeated by men’s singles champion and the eventual mixed silver medallists, Andy Murray and Laura Robson (GBR) 3-6, 6-3, 8-10 in a super tie break, again on centre court. 

Hewitt said he savoured the opportunity to play on the most famous piece of real estate in tennis.

“It was fantastic, you never know how many opportunities you are going to get to play out there and getting towards the end of my career, you live for moments like that,” he said.

In the women’s singles Samantha Stosur fought bravely for over two and a half hours on the opening day but was defeated 3-6, 7-5, 10-8 in the third set by Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.

Stosur backed up just one and a half hours later with Casey Dellacqua in the women’s doubles but they too were unfortunately defeated by Spanish number eight seeds Nuria Llagostera Vives and Maria Jose Martinez, 6-1 6-1.

Australia’s second women’s doubles pairing of Jamila Gajdosova and Anastasia Rodionova were also defeated in their opening round by Russian number six seeds of Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova 6-1 6-4.

In the men’s singles Bernard Tomic lost a tight two set rain delayed opening round match 7-6 7-6 to Japanese 18th seed Kei Nishikori.

Jo Banning in London

Olympics.com.au