Wimbledon: Nadal wins, Tsonga beats Hewitt

Rafael Nadal lost the first four games of his first-round match at Wimbledon before turning things around against Thomaz Bellucci, beating the Brazilian 7-6 (0), 6-2, 6-3.

Just like defending women’s champion Petra Kvitova in the match before him, Nadal had a shaky start on Centre Court.

He was two points away from going down 5-0 in the first set, but Bellucci netted an overhead backhand at 30-15 and Nadal went on to break for 4-1 to start the comeback.

He won the next three games to make it 4-4 and Bellucci then self-destructed in the tiebreaker, making several unforced errors.

The two-time champion was hardly troubled after that and served out the match with an ace.

Fifth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga ousted former champion Lleyton Hewitt in straight sets Tuesday in the first round of Wimbledon.

Hewitt was playing as a wild card for the first time at Wimbledon and couldn’t do much to stop the sixth-ranked Frenchman, who broke once in each set to win 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. Tsonga finished with 61 winners to the Australian’s 12.

Tsonga reached the semifinals at the All England Club last year after rallying from two sets down against Roger Federer in the quarterfinals, before losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic. Tsonga lost to Djokovic again at the French Open this year after holding four match points in their quarterfinal.

Hewitt was playing in his 14th straight Wimbledon. He had not lost in the first round since 2003, when he was the defending champion.

AP