With Hewitt finally retiring, only Federer is left from that pre-Nadal, pre-Joker era. I was thinking about this and remembered one thing about Hewitt that I appreciated the most. Namely, losing to Safin in the AO final in 2005.



That match was fine, but what preceded it was the epic battle between Safin and dominant Federer in the semis. Probably one of the most riveting matches ever in which Safin broke Roger's 25+ match winning streak. Check out the fifth set in this video. The ending was just insane. That run by Safin made a lifelong tennis fan out of me.



For a better writeup on this match see also
http://theclassicmatch.blogspot.com/...safin-def.html