Hewitt pulls from Rotterdam as de Villiers vows crackdown

Verkerk returns out of shape after long layoff

FROM THE ABN AMRO IN ROTTERDAM – Richard Krajicek, tournament director of The Netherlands' biggest ATP event, experienced perhaps the biggest pull-out fest in 2006, when 12 players withdrew out of a 32-draw sheet. One year later, history is repeating itself.

The 2006 edition featured a star-studded field, with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Ivan Ljubicic, Marcos Baghdatis and Marat Safin all in the mix. Except, none of them showed up. Sjeng Schalken, Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet, Martin Verkerk, Peter Wessels, Dominik Hrbaty and Sebastién Grosjean also failed to appear, while Taylor Dent retired in his first-round match.

The bizarre week came to an end when Radek Stepanek defeated Christophe Rochus in the shortest final in the 33-year history of the event: 6-0, 6-3 in 46 minutes.

In 2007, Krajicek had to deal with withdrawals from Mario Ancic, Marcos Baghdatis, Sebastién Grosjean, Tim Henman, Joachim Johansson, Richard Gasquet and crowd favorite Raemon Sluiter, but stated it's normal such an amount of players cancel from a tournament these days. However, when Lleyton Hewitt pulled out on Tuesday, the '96 Wimbledon champion was very disappointed.

"Lleyton is our biggest star, so it's very unfortunate he can't play. He called me this morning and I knew it could only mean one thing. You know he's not calling to tell you he enjoyed his holidays," Krajicek said.

Hewitt withdrew from the event with a strained hamstring, an injury he took with him from Marseille, when the 25-year-old Aussie retired in his second-round match against Frenchman Gilles Simon, who went on to win the tournament.

"It's obviously extremely disappointing for me," Hewitt said. "I had a great week here when I won the tournament in 2004. [The injury] is improving but it's improving slowly. I came here, because you just never know [how fast it will heal]. I will be coming back next year. Richard and I have a very good bond and I'm as disappointed as anyone I couldn't play."

Hewitt played three matches in Australia's Davis Cup tie in and against Belgium a week ago on clay, where both of his singles matches went to a fifth set. Hewitt lost to Kristof Vliegen on Friday, but beat Olivier Rochus in the fourth rubber, before Vliegen beat Chris Guccione in the deciding match.

"Lleyton was out on court for 11 hours in three days," Krajicek says. "In his first-round match in Marseille he also played a three-set match. You know that something can happen [to his body]."

VERKERK PLAYS FIRST MATCH SINCE 2004

Martin Verkerk returned to action on Wednesday night, playing his first ATP level match since 2004 when he beat Fernando Gonzalez in the final of Amersfoort. The '03 Roland Garros finalist was sidelined for two-and-a-half years, mainly due to a severe shoulder injury. Verkerk played two Challenger events in 2006, but ran into several niggling injuries and had to postpone his ATP level return until this week.

The former No. 14 entered the tournament on a last-minute wild card after Marcos Baghdatis withdrew with a wrist injury. The Dutchman was very rusty in his match against South African lucky loser Rik de Voest, and went down in straight sets, 6-3, 7-6(0). He wasn't in great shape either, but says he knows he has to lose a few pounds.

"Six weeks ago, I couldn't run for five metres, and now I'm here," Verkerk said. "I really enjoyed it today. I'm just not used to playing important points anymore. But by playing a lot of matches that will come back." Verkerk was moving slowly and was very poor in returning serve. But, the 28-year-old still possesses a monster serve and a killer one-handed backhand. If he gets fully fit and plays more matches, he could have a few more good years in him.

Two of the tournament's top seeds, Nikolay Davydenko and Tommy Robredo, won on Thursday.

De Villiers: Suspensions in future
A day after Hewitt withdrew, ATP CEO Etienne de Villiers spoke about the ATP's plans for 2009 and how last-minute withdrawals should be dealt with in the future. "They will be not just fined; they will be suspended," said the South African of players who cancel events at the last moment. "What we want to stop is [unfit] players entering tournaments just to see how they get on."

One of De Villiers' biggest concerns with tennis is that the sport has not evolved like some other sports. He wants to create a new tournament system, where fans can recognize the nature of the event by points allocation. "Most fans don't understand how the system works," he said. "The four Slams are great, but we need to make it better. We need to have something else. When I came to this job, I didn't know what a Masters Series event stood for, and I was a big tennis fan."

De Villiers says he wants to change the current calendar into three tournament categories s to improve the structure of the tour. Grand Slams will be worth 2,000 points, Masters Series will become 1,000 point events, while de Villiers wants to create a third category of 500-point tournaments, consisting of eight to 12 events. "People will understand the swing to Roland Garros, to the US Open, and ultimately, to the year-end championships," he said.

There are currently nine Masters Series events, of which the top players need to play seven. There will be a cutback to eight of these tournaments, and de Villiers says players will need to take part in all of them.

De Villiers' plans received a less than cordial reception from some top players during at the Australian Open. One source told TennisReporters.net that both Federer and Andy Roddick were livid about the plan to mandate player participate in all the Masters Series events. Last week in San Jose, Marat Safin came out firmly against mandatory tournaments, saying that players should only have to commit to four to five Masters Series tournaments.

The Masters Cup at the end of the year will move back to Europe in two year, likely to London. "Because of all the indoor events at the end of the season in Europe, the autumn swing has to end there," the ATP head said.

De Villiers also spoke about how the game should not be about four or five characters, but that other players need to be put in the spotlight. "We have to make Ivan [Ljubicic] and Nikolay [Davydenko] more interesting to the average fan. They are great tennis players and very interesting people," he said.

After thrashing the 32-man round robin format after Adelaide, de Villiers said that the experiment is working fine. "I'm completely open-minded. Ask the fans and they all seem very positive. The first two, the 32-hybrid, were hard to communicate. If one would fail, I thought it would be those."