Hewitt brushes past Sampras

Australia's Lleyton Hewitt captured his first Grand Slam singles title yesterday, defeating American veteran Pete Sampras 7-6 (7/4), 6-1, 6-1 to win the US Open finals.

The 20-year-old Australian, playing in his first Slam final, chased down every offering Sampras made and fired deadly winners past the 13-time Slam champion, who lost the Flushing Meadows final for the second year in a row.

"It's unbelievable," Hewitt said. "I have dreamed of this moment, being out here and playing in a Grand Slam final. It hasn't sunk in yet."

Hewitt made only three unforced errors in the final 13 games.

"I don't know what I can say," Hewitt said. "I got a bit lucky out there and I was seeing the ball better with every match I played. I don't know what to say. But it's a dream come true. I can say that."

It was the worst US Open finals blowout since Stefan Edberg beat Jim Courier 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 in the 1991 title match and the worst Slam finals blowout since Czech Petr Korda beat Chile's Marcelo Rios 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 in 1998 Australian Open final.

Hewitt won his 10th career title and by far his most important, becoming the youngest US Open champion since Sampras won his first of four US Open titles 11 years ago.

"He was unbelievable. The kid is so quick it's unbelievable," Sampras said. "Those legs, I wish I had some of those legs for this old guy."

Tenth seed Sampras beat Hewitt 7-6, 6-4, 7-6 in last year's US Open semi-finals, the Aussie's best prior Slam performance. But Sampras, who turned 30 last month, saw his career-record title drought reach 18 events.

"I lost to a great champion," Sampras said. "You're going to see this Lleyton Hewitt guy for the next 10 years, like you saw me. It was a good run. Unfortunately, I ran into a guy who was a little bit too good."

Fourth seed Hewitt won his fourth title of the year and went from villian to hero in a week. He was hounded after remarks he made in a second-round match were interpreted as racial insults by a black opponent.

Hewitt was down two sets to one to American wild card James Blake when he complained about a black linesman calling him for foot faults.

But when he asked umpire Andreas Egli if he saw any "similarities", Blake thought he meant the skin color of player and linesman, not between how Hewitt was being called on opposite ends of the court. An uproar arose, but Hewitt apologized for the misunderstanding and was not fined by the International Tennis Federation. Scattered booing has dogged Hewitt ever since.

But Hewitt put aside the cat-calls and the controversy, then fought through a five-set quarter-final victory over 19-year-old American Andy Roddick and inflicted the most lopsided semi-final rout in US Open history on Russian seventh seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

Hewitt won $850,000, improved his season-best ATP victory total to 64 and leveled his career mark with Sampras at 4-4. He becomes only the second Aussie to win the US Open crown since 1973, following Pat Rafter.