Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt took a break from tennis and seems to have found his game.

He came into his match yesterday against veteran Wayne Ferreira on a roll, having won the inaugural U.S. Open Series over the weekend. Should he go on to win the Open, that will earn him $500,000 in bonus prize money.

He’s on his way, defeating Ferreira 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 yesterday.

After rising to No. 1 in the world in November 2001, Hewitt stayed there for 75 weeks. But the 2001 U.S. Open champion slumped, and he took a self-imposed break last year. Since then, the 23-year-old Australian has climbed from 16th to fourth in the ATP rankings.

“I’ve been able to put it together day-in and day-out the last few weeks, the last couple of months, really,” Hewitt said. “There’s definitely been matches over the last few weeks that I feel like I’ve played as well as I’ve probably ever played.”

Ferreira, playing his record 56th consecutive Grand Slam event, announced he will retire after playing for South Africa in the Davis Cup at the end of the month (a home match vs. Greece).

“I think he’s got his game back again. He moved exceptionally well, brought a lot of balls back,” Ferreira said. “But the serve, you know, he served very, very well, which is something he’s been struggling with for a while.”

Ferreira’s 14 years of consecutive Grand Slam play had been catching up to him. He hadn’t practiced much since his win over Hewitt in L.A., and yesterday he couldn’t keep pace with Hewitt’s quickness and wall-like ability to return almost any shot.

The day was special for him regardless.

“Today was really the first match that my son [5-year-old Marcus] ever watched me play,” said Ferreira, 32. “That was a great feeling.”

Hewitt, known to be somewhat feisty on the court, got into two minor verbal confrontations with judges. Each fired him up, and he bounced back from both to win the subsequent games.

During his press conference, Hewitt couldn’t keep from checking the match between Hicham Arazi and Kenneth Carlsen, each a lefty who would be his next opponent. Arazi won 6-4, 7-6, 6-7, 3-6, 6-3.