When Czech player Robin Vik finally succumbed in five sets at the Australian Open this year, his opponent, Aussie star Lleyton Hewitt, could raise his hands in triumph after barely escaping a difficult round. He had spent over three hours on court in his opening match, but the applause from the crowd at Rod Laver Arena seemed rather muted. They were certainly pleased to see one of their own win the match and advance into the second round. They just weren’t so sure if they wanted it to be Lleyton Hewitt.
We know the feeling. Hewitt has always been a tough tinnie to swallow. Maybe it’s due to his style of play, which we could term your basic Street Brawler. If you like seeing lots of fur fly, then you like Hewitt’s playing style. Steady as she goes, from the baseline, a lot of grinding guys down with his ground strokes. Pretty? Well, no, but does he care? It’s a rough and abrasive style of playing, and if we get our way past that, then we have Hewitt’s personality that catches up to us. Also rough and abrasive. It’s not enough that Hewitt wins the match; he seems to need to diminish his opponents as well.
When Hewitt’s antics and verbal “come-awns” got to be a bit much, I started to curse the TV set when he played. I would say to myself, “Remember, Kim Clijsters loves him.” This got me through a good several years of the animated Aussie lad. But then the pair broke up. Even Kim didn’t love him in the end, said I. So now what do we do to get past the Hewitt personality? We want to like this man, there are things to admire about him, but how do we get there?
Unfortunately for Lleyton Hewitt, he emerged into tennis fame as one of the greatest Aussie players, Patrick Rafter, was edging into retirement. Alongside Rafter, probably even a nice guy like Roger Federer would seem just an ordinary bloke. Put Hewitt alongside Rafter and you get a sense of the Aussies’ dilemma. They are day and night. It’s more than just the looks: the smaller, wirier blond Hewitt juxtaposed against the dark, dashing good looks of Rafter is a strong contrast right there. But we remember the graceful athleticism of Rafter, and the fact that he was one of the last of a dying breed, a great serve and volley player. For a long time, Australian tennis was all about guys who played serve and volley. Rafter is a natural continuation of this line. His court manners were always impeccable, and that’s a lot of what we remember of Rafter. Whenever a player tosses his service ball away and has to catch it and start again, I think of Patrick Rafter, and his cordial “sorry mate,” to whoever he was playing against.
No one says such things these days. Certainly not a guy like Hewitt.
He has a lot going for him, though. He possesses the most ferociously competitive spirit in all of tennis by a country mile. His feistiness will never let him abandon a match. Quitting a match like Justine Henin-Hardenne did in the women’s final? Not a chance in hell, baby, that’s pussy stuff. We can almost hear Hewitt saying that. Just as he said after his match at the US Open with Dominic Hrbaty, “I could never lose to a bloke wearing a shirt like that.” The man has his own idea of a standard he will not slip below. Kudos to him for that.
No kudos though for the fact that Hewitt seems to get personal in his matches; he wants to grind his opponents’ games down and then he wants to grind them down. This is what ticks people off about Hewitt, the way he makes things so personal. When you watch Roger Federer beating up guys galore, you see his game as one that offers us something; there is generosity being displayed towards his opponents. You get none of that with Hewitt. He’s had to fight for every point and you the audience should too. Considering how Justine Henin-Hardenne’s lack of generosity played out recently at the Open, you’d think Hewitt would not want to go down that route too. Unfortunately the guy seems headed there.
This contrariness may motivate Hewitt, but it is going to ruin him for the history books. Until he addresses what we shall term his lack of generosity towards his opponents, Hewitt is not going to be well-regarded when he retires from the game. People will feel relieved to see him go, not terribly sorry as we were when Patrick Rafter retired.
Part of me likes to see Hewitt play and win; we like to see “little guys” do well in this sport of increasingly bigger male specimens. He doesn’t have big weapons, he has to put it together and hope it holds with the glue of that combative personality. At times I’ve nearly felt sorry for him on court. He has to work a ton out there just to stay even sometimes. To his credit also, he comes out each year with new things to try and bother a guy like Roger Federer. Adding more pop to his serves, getting more stick on his ground strokes, working on his net game, bulking up a bit more in the gym. The man has a serious work ethic, and when he works, he works very very hard. Roger simply tosses it back to him. Hewitt has to swallow it and try something else next year. This could get under the skin of a guy. It takes a considerable amount of mental fortitude to go back and face the wall you’ve never been able to budge before.
To his credit, Hewitt seems capable of offering genuine congratulations when he loses to his peers. It shows in his face and in his handshake at the net. For the most part. When he loses to Federer, Hewitt is positively cordial. Hewitt does not regard Juan Ignacio Chela as one of his peers, obviously, even though Chela beat Hewitt this year in the second round. Their meeting at the net was bare bones: a spare handshake and a cool look. Considering the history between these two, that was probably effusive.
To his credit too, Hewitt can acknowledge when he’s been whipped good. “This will hurt for a few days,” he said after the loss to Chela. His ranking has slipped to eleventh. To compound his recent woes, he also decided this week not to play Davis Cup for Australia against Switzerland in February. “He has made himself unavailable” is how they put it. It seems Hewitt is still teed off by the Open’s choice of court surface, which is way too slow in Hewitt’s book. The rancor there has spilled over into his Davis Cup participation. It seems Hewitt is going to take a bit of time off to himself.
This is probably a good thing, as the media circus surrounding Hewitt now in Australia is intense and likely to get even more so. “The Brad Pitt of Australia,” chirps one tabloid headline. Well, a small resemblance perhaps. His soap star wife uncannily recalls Angelina Jolie. Who could ask for more? It’s almost akin to what soccer star David Beckham had to endure for some years in England, until he finally got traded away to a country that wouldn’t care quite so dearly for him and his wife.
The Aussies are probably a bit weary of all the publicity too. The crowd’s tepid reaction after the match with Robin Vik is probably due to this fact. We’re all worn out one way or another with Hewitt. Will Lleyton Hewitt ever feel worn out by this publicity onslaught? My sense is that he is going to arrive at this same point too. What will happen to the marriage? A friend of mine says to me the other week, “I give them three years.”
Should tennis players get married? At the height of their careers? And have a kid so soon? This may sound somewhat uncharitable, it is not intended that way, but this is a very difficult row to hoe. As a top-flight athlete, there are some things that have to be put on hold while you gallivant about the globe, following the tournaments, leading a kind of vagabond existence from one strange hotel to an even stranger one. Pete Sampras recognized this years ago when he moved himself to Florida to focus more on his tennis. It was also closer to Europe and a state with friendly tax laws, but the point is he was ready to do whatever it took. Several girlfriends came and went, but never a trip down the aisle until the very end of his career, and certainly no trips to the nursery. You have to maintain your focus on your game, no matter what.
Whether Lleyton Hewitt can keep all these elements together, keep his game on track and continue to develop, remains to be seen. His decision to marry and father a child at such a turning point in his career suggests to me that Hewitt has already given up on trying to overtake Roger Federer. When you’ve played the world’s number one several times in big matches and he’s rung your bell decisively, then perhaps you decide to get on with your private life.
Maybe this is the choice Lleyton Hewitt has made. Privately though, I hope the Aussie in him reasserts itself, and that he fights his way back into the fray of men’s tennis. My hunch is that somewhere inside this brash and often rude young man lurks an Aussie sporting heart. It is going to reassert itself. It is going to want to play the game the way the Aussie greats of yore played it, in attitude if not in actual playing style. Kiss the publicity goodbye then, wave off the hangers-on and get back to the business of grinding out tennis balls. Hewitt is going to reach his fill of this jet-set life.
And then the guys on tour should look out.
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