Lleyton Hewitt and Tommy Haas: Return of the Prodigals

Lleyton Hewitt and Tommy Haas are roaring with every match that they are contesting; their strengths increasing, nervousness and anxiety thawing as the surface and the atmosphere seeps into familiarity.

Both of them look to have shaken off their mental barriers in addition to the physical vulnerability that prevented them from displaying their expertise more often.

Their sense of confidence has returned, especially when we consider Hewitt; his "C'mons" in these past few days have displayed more conviction, more fierceness and a competitive edge that was missing in his game for quite some time now.

His third round match against Petzsner just reflected that; was there anything that the German didn't do in order to overcome Hewitt? No...he tried his level best- his ultimate best; each shot and each rally, he played like a man possessed but yet Hewitt won it.

And it was not just because he was always one step ahead of Petzsner throughout the match, but because he was mentally powerful than his opponent. In any match, be it any player it always boils down to mental fortitude and Hewitt has been displaying such feral mental drive in copious amounts.

Petzsner tried hard, harder and hardest...but Hewitt was always one step better; in a competition between resilience and resilience, the stronger "R" factor prevailed convincingly.

Tommy Haas, on the other hand doesn't seem to have overcome his "choking" habit; he choked again in his third round encounter against Marin Cilic allowing the Croat to equalise things at two sets all after leading two sets to love.

The fact that the match got postponed to yet another day, didn't help matters as there was always a lingering doubt in everyone's mind that Haas might just give Cilic an early Christmas present.

But thankfully, haas persisted and persisted; neither did he break Cilic in the next three games nor did he allow his serve to get broken [though twice his fans had their hearts in their mouths] before finally breaking the 20-year old in the 17th game.

And there again, he started to choke...faced two break points and had Cilic been able to convert either of the two chances, Haas would have been finished in the first week itself- the dark horse would have disappeared like a shadow instead of manifesting himself into the light.

And this is where Haas showed his powers of concentration, experience and most of all...his desire to outwit his rival. Calm and composed, he forced Cilic to commit errors before finally snatching the match once again from the throes of an impending defeat.

Playing amidst the "top seeded" personas, these two players provided wholesome entertainment, their play making meriting cries of "Oohs" and "Aahs" when compared to the boring serve dominated affair between Andy Roddick and Jurgen Melzer in the Centre Court!