Lleyton Hewitt will head towards Wimbledon buoyed by what a former coach described as his best tennis in almost a decade during a first-round French Open loss.
The 32-year-old’s remarkable final-set fightback proved in vain as he let a two-set lead slip against 15th-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon on Sunday.
Marinko Matosevic and James Duckworth also became early casualties as all three Australians involved on day one of the claycourt grand slam suffered losses.
None came closer to victory than Hewitt, who fought back to 5-5 from 5-0 down in the fifth and deciding set before Simon secured a 3-6 1-6 6-4 6-1 7-5 win.
Hewitt ultimately paid for a mid-match fadeout but his play in the first two sets was described by his former coach Darren Cahill as “the best I’ve seen Hewitt play in about eight years”.
Asked if he agreed with Cahill’s assessment on Twitter, Hewitt said: “Yeah, first two sets I played pretty well.
“I went out there with a pretty good game plan and I executed it perfectly.”
The former world No.1 was troubled by toe blisters, calling for treatment at the start of the final set, but he refused to use it as an excuse.
After taking a six-week break from competition before last week’s event in Nice, Hewitt will head into the grasscourt events feeling fit and confident.
“Physically, I feel good. I was never going to play a lot of clay tournaments anyway,” he said.
“I wanted to be fresh physically and mentally for the grass season.
“I still trained extremely hard, though, so that was good. Now we will see what happens on the grass.”
Hewitt’s performance also earned praise from fellow tour veteran David Ferrer, who opened with a 6-4 6-3 6-4 win over Matosevic.
The Spanish fourth seed said Hewitt’s longevity meant he should be viewed as “the reference” for younger players on tour.
Matosevic made Ferrer work for his victory but the Australian was left to rue wasting a host of break-point chances, and a 3-0, double-break lead in the second set.
“When you don’t take those (chances) against guys like that, it’s tough to come back from,” he said.
Qualifier Duckworth fell to Slovenian Blaz Kavcic 6-2 6-2 6-2.
Teenage wildcard Nick Kyrgios is the only Australian in action on Monday while Samantha Stosur, Ashleigh Barty and Bernard Tomic open their campaigns on Tuesday.
Australia’s top Roland Garros hope Stosur faces Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm and has vowed to stay focused on the task at hand despite being lumped in a challenging section of the draw featuring defending champion Maria Sharapova and Petra Kvitova.
“If I find myself playing Sharapova or Kvitova, then great,” the world No.9 said.
“But you’ve got to get there first.”
