Hawk-Eye commentator Jason Goodall explains how Hewitt adjusted his tactics to secure victory:

You can see that in previous matches Hewitt has varied his serve very well and naturally he adds a bit of slice, so it goes predominantly to the right of the deuce court and the ad court.

But against Lopez, who's a left-hander with a weaker backhand, exactly the opposite was the case.

He served the vast majority of his first serves to the Spaniard's forehand in both the deuce and the ad court.

It was a distinct change of tactics.

Hewitt serve-volleyed a lot more behind both the first and second serves than he had done in previous matches.

Even when he stayed back he was always looking to come to the net, winning 10 points when moving into the forecourt.

On the second serve his tactics were totally as you would expect - every single second serve went to the Lopez backhand, which is the weaker of the Spaniard's groundstrokes.

Coming into the match Lopez had only lost serve three times in the tournament, but against Hewitt he could not decide which was the most effective serve.

Naturally, being a left-hander, you would expect him to serve the vast majority out wide to the ad court and down the T to the deuce court, but because Hewitt has such a good backhand return he was not able to play to his own stregths on serve.

That's one of the reasons Lopez lost the match and it's why Hewitt has such a good record against left-handers, and other players such as Safin and Ancic have failed.