Hewitt eager to break Hopman Cup hoodoo

Lleyton Hewitt will be hoping it's a case of fourth time lucky when he teams up with
West Australian Casey Dellacqua to contest the 21st edition of Perth's Hopman Cup,
which kicks off on Saturday.
Hewitt has competed in the mixed teams' event on three previous occasions but is yet
to snare the title.
In 2002, Hewitt and Alicia Molik were on the verge of making the final before Hewitt
came down with chicken pox, forcing Australia to forfeit their round-robin clash
with Spain.
Eager to atone for that disappointment, Hewitt and Molik made it to the final in
2003 only for the US pairing of James Blake and Serena Williams to romp to a 3-0
victory.
Williams was again due to partner Blake this year as the US attempt to snare a
record sixth title but her withdrawal due to a hamstring injury has thrown the
tournament wide open.
With Williams replaced by world No.836 Meghann Shaughnessy, France (featuring world
No.7 Gilles Simon and Alize Cornet) and Russia (Marat Safin and world No.3 Dinara
Safina) are now considered the favourites.
"Williams and Blake would be an awesome team - I've lost to them in the final
before," Hewitt said.
"It (Williams' withdrawal) does make it a little bit more open for everyone."
Australia, whose only ever title came in 1999 when Mark Philippoussis and Jelena
Dokic beat Swedish pair Jonas Bjorkman and Asa Carlsson, have been seeded fourth for
the 2009 edition.
The top-seeded US, Germany (Sabine Lisicki, Nicolas Kiefer) and Slovak Republic
(Dominika Cibulkova, Dominik Hrbaty) join Australia in group A.
Group B features the second-seeded Russians, the powerful French, Italy (Flavia
Pennetta and Simone Bolelli) and Chinese Tapei (Su-Wei Hsieh, Yen-Hsun Lu).
France tackle Chinese Taipei in the tournament opener on Saturday while Australia
kicks off their campaign against Germany on Monday.
The tournament marks the first matches for Hewitt (hip) and Dellacqua (shoulder)
since the pair suffered season-ending injuries in 2008.
Hewitt said Blake, currently ranked 10th in the world, would be his biggest challenge.
"Blake's probably the form guy of the group in terms of ranking and being a top-10
player," Hewitt said.
"He's been able to prove that on a week in, week out basis over the last two or
three years now.
"So he's going to be the challenge. He's my last match so hopefully I get a couple
of good workouts before I play James."