Sunday, August 04, 2002
Hewitt: Boorish, fiesty and No.1
Aussie's play wins matches, not fans
By Neil Schmidt, nschmidt@enquirer.com
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Number two seed Lleyton Hewitt cheers as a 15-foot putt falls into the hole at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Center. Hewitt was among several tennis pros playing in a golf outing prior to the beginning of the Western-Southern Financial Group Tennis Masters Series in Mason.
(Photo by Michael E. Keating)
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He is at times friendly and ferocious, brilliant and bratty. He is the best player in his sport and the least accessible.
He is Lleyton Hewitt, and he is who he is.
“I'm not backing down from anybody,” the 21-year-old Australian once said. “You don't play this game to win. You play to kill people out there.”
He comes to the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters this week with a curious lack of hype, mostly because he avoids the attention due his status in the sport. ESPN Magazine said Hewitt “became No.1 without sacrificing his anonymity.”
Hewitt has turned off many fans in his homeland, topping a national magazine poll in 2000 for most hated sportsman of the year. His management minimizes his time in public and with the media. He no longer speaks with the Australian press, which has nicknamed him Satan Hewitt.
“The celebrity stuff?” Hewitt has said. “I don't have much use for that kind of thing.”
What he has use for: intense, intimidating tennis. The 5-foot-10, 150-pound Hewitt is a unique breed of player, one that wins by frustrating opponents with relentless returns, or by ticking them off.
He snarls, swears and stares down opponents. He pumps his fist, thumps his chest and screams “C'mon!” constantly. He'd be Jimmy Connors if Connors had turned the crowd against himself.
“He doesn't play to the crowd much, doesn't smile much,” ESPN analyst Cliff Drysdale said of Hewitt. “He's like a professional hit man on the court; he's only interested in winning and getting off. I guess that's not very endearing.”
But it's surely impressive. Hewitt has exceeded expectations at every step.
In 1997, at 15 years and 11 months, Hewitt became the youngest Australian Open qualifier. He turned pro the next year and became the lowest-ranked winner in tour history -- at No.550, winning in his hometown of Adelaide -- and the youngest winner of an ATP event since Michael Chang in 1988.
By age 20, Hewitt had achieved the tennis triumvirate of winning a Grand Slam event, the Davis Cup and becoming world No.1, the youngest ever to do so. In the past year, he became the youngest U.S. Open champ since 1990 and the youngest Wimbledon winner since 1986.
“I've done everything a little bit quicker than a lot of people have expected, so it's a bit surprising to me,” Hewitt said. “(But) I'm a very driven person. I'm very competitive. I don't enjoy losing. So I'm going to go out there still and be as hungry as ever.”
The men's game is eager for a charismatic champion, which is something Hewitt isn't. When not playing, he returns to Adelaide, where he still lives with his parents. He doesn't even own a car.
On the road, Hewitt spends his free time lounging around rented homes, watching Webcasts of his favorite Australian Rules football team, the Adelaide Crows. He hangs out with a very tight-knit inner circle: Parents Glynn and Cherilyn; coach Jason Stoltenberg, girlfriend and Belgian tennis star Kim Clijsters, and his best friend from home, Haydn Eckermann, whom Hewitt is paying to keep him company during the endless grind of the tour.
He also is tight with John Newcombe, a three-time Wimbledon champ whom Hewitt seeks out before and after every match.
“People see Lleyton on the court, and he's this competitive beast,” Australian Davis Cup captain John Fitzgerald told Sports Illustrated. “But he's really just a normal kid, maybe a bit shy.”
Hewitt's results have surprised most observers, many of whom figured scrappiness could go only so far.
He's the fastest player in tennis, the best lobber and arguably the best returner. He draws countless comparisons: the athleticism of Bjorn Borg, the combativeness of Connors, the foot speed of Chang. Yet he's really his own creation, remarkable in that he doesn't possess a true killer shot.
“He has an incredible spirit of fight and not giving up,” Chang said. “That maybe overshadows some of his other talents.”
Hewitt is the first backcourt player to win Wimbledon since Andre Agassi In 1992. But Agassi comparisons are unjust.
Agassi can dictate pace from the baseline, but Hewitt is a human backboard. He'll wait all afternoon for a short ball he can attack.
“(Mats) Wilander and Borg were the greatest of counterpunchers,” Newcombe has said. “Opponents knew they were in a fight for hours. This kid is the same way.”
This time last year, Hewitt hadn't yet won a Masters Series event, only once reaching a final, and hadn't reached a final of a Grand Slam event. He was ranked No.5.
Yet entering last week, Hewitt held a 2,000-point lead over Marat Safin in the rankings, a giant margin. If not for suffering from chicken pox in the Australian Open -- leading to a first-round loss -- he might be even further ahead.
Hewitt isn't resting on his ranking. After last year, he fired his former coach and hired Stoltenberg. Hewitt has spent more time in the gym, hoping more muscle will make for more efficient victories.
Grinding out points can take a toll. Chang, Wilander and Borg all were finished as Slam contenders by their mid-20s.
“It's going to be tough for Lleyton to have that (invincible) status,” countryman Patrick Rafter said last year. “He just has to work so hard the whole time.”
“If I burn out, I burn out,” Hewitt countered. “In the next few years, I feel like I'm going to be a threat at all the Grand Slams. Whether I'll be around in 10 years' time, who knows?”
Rafter has been a tough act for Hewitt to follow. The affable former No.1 recently was named Australian of the Year.
Hewitt's brash style grated on many Australian fans. He has been fined for using foul language on court and for calling a chair umpire at the French Open “spastic.” He abused his hometown crowd in Adelaide for booing him, saying, “That's just the stupidity of the Australian public.” Playing Boris Becker at Wimbledon in 1999, Hewitt muttered to the pro-Becker crowd, “Shut the (bleep) up.”
The low point happened while playing James Blake last year at the U.S.Open, when Hewitt made a comment to an umpire that was interpreted as racist.
Is it backlash? Spanish star Alex Corretja described Hewitt as lacking education, odd and arrogant. Australian columnists have labeled Hewitt “appalling,” “graceless,” a “boor” and “an embarrassment to tennis and Australia.” Former player Brad Gilbert once said he would be “amazed if someone doesn't whack him in the locker room.”
“He's not endearing himself to the press because he's not cooperative,” said Hall of Famer and Cincinnati native Tony Trabert, who does TV work for an Australian station. “As a result, sportswriters are not going to eulogize him.”
W & S tournament director Bruce Flory offers this reminder: Pete Sampras initially drew an apathetic response from fans, but that changed the longer he kept winning. Hewitt can help himself most by staying No.1.
“It takes awhile to catch on,” Flory said. “It's still early in Hewitt's career.”
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Hewitt: Boorish, fiesty and No.1