Former champion Andy Roddick fired off 17 aces and a number of thundering forehands to overpower 2001 winner Lleyton Hewitt 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 in a quarter-final match at the US Open on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old Roddick ousted Hewitt in almost two hours to reach the semi-finals where he will face unseeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny.
"He came out serving so well didn't give me too many looks at second serves," Hewitt said. "When Andy is serving that well you have got to clean up your own service games and I didn't do that."
This was his ninth career meeting between the two former world number ones with Hewitt still holding a 7-2 lead overall.
Roddick posted an 80 percent success rate on his first serve points and survived a key set point to hold on to win the second set in front of a crowd of about 21,000 at the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The American won seven straight points on serve late in the first set then broke Hewitt in the last game to clinch it.
He broke Hewitt again in the third game of the second set but the Australian returned the favour in the next game. They stayed on serve until Roddick broke the Aussie again in the 11th game to go ahead 6-5.
{{/usCountry}}He broke Hewitt again in the third game of the second set but the Australian returned the favour in the next game. They stayed on serve until Roddick broke the Aussie again in the 11th game to go ahead 6-5.
{{/usCountry}}Roddick finished off Hewitt in just 38 minutes in the final set as he stepped up his game on big points and whenever he had an opportunity to break Hewitt's serve.
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