Home-crowd favourite Lleyton Hewitt has declared himself in confident mood ahead of his Australian Open first-round match with Janko Tipsarevic.
The 31-year-old, who made the fourth round last year, takes on the world number nine in the evening session of day one in Melbourne.
Hewitt revealed that he is pleased with how he is hitting the ball at the moment and said that he is relishing the challenge of the Serbian number two.
"I'll knock [Tipsarevic] off, try to take his spot in the draw," said Hewitt. "I look forward to the challenge.
"The last couple of matches I've hit the ball as well as I can remember. I feel confident with where my game is at the moment.
"There are still a couple things I got to try to take care of when I'm on the match court, but all in all, when my moving comes together and I'm serving well, my returns and obviously passing shots and counter-punching has been pretty good anyways."
Hewitt is a former US Open and Wimbledon champion.
Michael Penkman
