Hewitt rolls back years to down Dimitrov at Queen's

Lleyton Hewitt of Australia hits a backhand during the Men’s Singles second round match against Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria on day three of the AEGON Championships at Queens Club on June 12, 2013 in London, England. (Getty Images)

Lleyton Hewitt rolled back the years as the Australian routed Bulgarian 10th seed Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-3 in the second round at Queen’s Club on Wednesday.

Hewitt is a four-time champion at the pre-Wimbledon warm-up event, but thoughts of a record fifth crown were some way from the former world number one’s thoughts when he arrived in west London at the start of the week.

The 32-year-old is well into the twilight of his career and his lowly 82nd position in the world rankings reflects that diminished status.

Hewitt’s first round defeat at the French Open, when he squandered a two-set lead against Gilles Simon, was his fourth successive loss, raising once again the possibility that he would retire soon.

But the former Wimbledon champion has always thrived on London’s grass courts and, after grinding out a hard-fought first round win over Michael Russell, he produced one of his best performances of 2013 to brush aside the highly-regarded Dimitrov.

He landed an early blow with a break of Dimitrov’s serve in the opening exchanges of the match and held onto that advantage to take the first set.

World number 28 Dimitrov, nicknamed Baby Fed after being compared to Roger Federer when he first emerged onto the ATP Tour, looked out of sorts for much of the match and Hewitt made him pay, breaking again in the second set before serving out the win.

Hewitt has now won two matches at a tournament for the first time since March when he reached the last 32 of the Masters event at Indian Wells.

Next up for the Australian is a last 16 clash against American sixth seed Sam Querrey.