Lleyton Hewitt demolished Poland’s Lukasz Kubot in straight sets to get Australia off to a flying start in the Davis Cup World Group playoff in Warsaw on Friday.
Australia’s most successful Davis Cup player continued his superb recent form with a comprehensive 6-1 6-3 6-2 victory over Kubot, Poland’s top-ranked player in the claycourt tie.
Australia must win the best-of-five playoff to return to the competition’s top tier for the first time since 2007.
Top-ranked Bernard Tomic will face Polish world No.113 Michal Przysiezny later on Friday.
Poland, bidding to reach the World Group for the first time, suffered a huge blow when world No.14 Jerzy Janowicz was ruled out due to a back injury.
As such, an enthusiastic home crowd at Warsaw’s Torwar Hall had pinned its hopes on 70th-ranked Kubot, a Wimbledon quarter-finallist.
But Hewitt quickly silenced the locals and gave a small but vocal Australian contingent plenty to cheer about as he raced to a 4-0 lead against a nervous-looking Kubot.
Continuing on from his run to the last 16 at the US Open, Hewitt broke Kubot twice early with relative ease and served strongly.
Aided by 17 unforced errors from Kubot, the world No.58 wrapped up the first set inside 32 minutes.
The second set was more of a contest but Hewitt had all the answers at crucial times.
He secured a break to go 4-2 up and closed out the set.
The third set was all Hewitt and he ruthlessly wrapped up the win in less than two hours.
It improved Hewitt’s singles win-loss record in the competition to an impressive 40-13.