In a rare exception to what has been one of tennis's greatest foregone conclusions over the past , Lleyton Hewitt ended his fifteen-match losing streak to Roger Federer by defeating him on the grass of Halle, winning the final 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 over the #1 seed and current ATP #2.

I was surprised to even see Hewitt in the field at Halle, since he had entered the concurrent Queen's Club event in London every year previously all the way back to 1998.  It's also rare to see a player enter a tournament when there's another one of equal standing in a country where his native language is spoken, but Hewitt's choice certainly paid off.

Hewitt's draw in Halle was much softer than what he would have encountered in London, not facing a single seed until Federer in the final.

But he has been plagued has had tough draws in big tournaments for such a long time, so he is certainly due for some luck.

In twelve of his last twenty-four grand slam tournaments (dating back to the beginning of 2004), Lleyton Hewitt lost to the eventual champion.  In five of those twelve tournaments in which he did not lose to the eventual champion, he lost to the eventual finalist.  Of his twenty four losses, the only one that could be considered the least bit suspect was his 2007 loss at the US Open to Agustin Calleri, which makes for a pretty good percentage of poor losses at big tournaments.

Hewitt made plenty of noise at Wimbledon last year, coming in unseeded and upsetting Juan Martin del Potro in the second round on his way to an eventual run to the quarterfinals.  With his ranking up six spots to #26 this week, he'll definitely be seeded at Wimbledon, and if he can draw into one of the softer sections of the bracket (like Nikolay Davydenko's), he should be considered something of a lock to make the second week again.

On Federer's end, he can't be happy to have two more big streaks broken for a second consecutive tournament.  In one blow, he lost a twenty-nine-match win streak at Halle and a fifteen-match win streak over Hewitt, just a week after simultaneously losing his streak of twenty-three consecutive  grand slam semifinals and twelve-match win streak over Soderling at last week's French Open.

Is Federer in trouble? He hasn't won a tournament since the Australian Open in January, but he's still going into Wimbledon as the defending champion and favorite.  Federer's been wrongly counted out too many times before for me to make that mistake again, especially with no clear challenger emerging on grass.