Sydeny, Mar 31: World number one Lleyton Hewitt has recovered from food poisoning and will lead Australia in the Davis Cup Tennis quarter-final against Sweden starting in Malmo on Friday, team officials said today. Hewitt was laid low with illness in the Miami Masters last week, bowing out in a second-round straight-sets loss to Spaniard Francisco Clavet. But Hewitt, who arrived in Sweden on Saturday, has had two training sessions with teammates Wayne Arthurs and Todd Woodbridge. The other Australian team member, Mark Philippoussis, was due to arrive in Sweden later today.


Australian coach Wally Masur said Hewitt had fully recovered from his illness and had been training hard.

“That was just a one-off scenario where he'd eaten something that didn't quite agree with him,” Masur said from Sweden on Monday.

“He was very flat in that match against Clavet. But the good news for us was that two days after that match Lleyton was back on the court.

“We had Todd Reid (the team's hitting partner) over in Miami with him and he was back on the court practising hard in the heat and back in the gym for an hour a day.” Hewitt and Philippoussis will almost certainly be Australia's singles players against the Swedish team of Thomas Enqvist, Jonas Bjorkman, Magnus Norman and Joachim Johansson.

Bureau Report