MELBOURNE, Australia -- In front of a smattering of spectators and with the heavy traffic of the Eastern Freeway rumbling just meters from the suburban Melbourne court, world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt played his sole Australian Open warm-up match on Friday.
In his first contest since recovering from chicken pox, Hewitt beat Todd Martin 6-1, 6-4 in a lackadaisical affair, but it was not the usual Lleyton Hewitt playing at the tiny club of Boroondara.
For a start he was wearing his baseball cap the right way, peak to the front, and there were no "c'mons" -- his usual shout of encouragement.
There was no intensity at all.
But in fairness, the Peters Drumstick Challenge was no challenge at all to the health or fitness of the Australian Open's top seed.
He served way below his best -- swirling, gusty winds did not help the rallying -- and the contest was over in less than an hour.
No conclusions on his level of fitness or match toughness could be drawn from the exhibition match, and Hewitt himself was maintaining the stony silence that has shrouded him for the last week.
Hidden away in a wooden clubhouse marshalled by uniformed teenagers and security guards, Hewitt avoided the assembled media and fans eager to find out how he was feeling after his much-publicized illness.
On Thursday, he had refused to talk to the media at a news conference to launch a new credit card.
Journalists were told to observe from a distance while television cameras were barred from the event in case a microphone picked up any private chatter.
On Friday, he did break his code of silence -- to pick the winner of a prize drawing for a holiday at the Boroondara club.
While Todd Martin spoke freely of his preparations for the first Grand Slam of the season starting on Monday, the highest-ranked player in the men's game would only read a name from a piece of paper he had pulled from a hat before disappearing back into the clubhouse.
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