Hutchins savours ‘fun’ debut

 

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:17

The 23-year-old qualifier pushed seventh-seeded Kristof Vliegen from Belgium all the way to a tie-break in the first set, before eventually going down 7-6 (7-3) 6-4.

“It was good fun, I enjoyed it a lot,” Hutchins said.

Hutchins, who is a doubles specialist, showed no sign of nerves. It was his failure to deal with the big serve of the world number 122 – Hutchins managed to win just seven out of 57 return points – which eventually led to his downfall.

Hutchins admitted the quality of his opposition was a difficult hurdle to overcome.

“I’ve been practising singles recently with Andy Murray a lot, but it’s very different playing matches and I haven’t played a singles match in probably two years,” he said.

“So it was good fun to get out there and I thought I played pretty well. It was a very tight first set, in the second set I went a break down, had a chance to come back, but all in all I enjoyed it.

“Kristof has been top 100 for a long time and has been as high as top 30, so he’s a very good player. I did enjoy it though, might try and play a bit more, but obviously doubles is my priority.”

Hutchins won his first ATP doubles title with Stephen Huss in China last year and conceded that his main ambition for 2009 was building on that success.

He added: “I’d like to end the year top-25, top-20 (in doubles). I’m still pretty young on the tour, around 44 or so at the moment, so I think I can move up pretty well. I think I’m capable of going very high in doubles, so we’ll see how it goes.”

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