By Neil Schmidt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

MASON - Lleyton Hewitt sits down and offers an articulate, 20-minute peek into his soul. He is gracious and thoughtful, speaking sincerely about the sport he ruled the past two years.

Until he calls ATP administrators liars.

For a bulldog, the fight is never far. In an interview Saturday with the Enquirer, a rarity for the media-wary Hewitt, the fiery Australian made clear he is still unsettled by his battles with the ATP Tour.

Though Hewitt reached the final of the 2002 Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, what endured from his last visit was his refusal to do an ESPN interview before his first match. The ATP's resulting fine and Hewitt's recent lawsuit have overshadowed his tennis, which has slipped this season.

"There were a lot of quotes from ATP representatives that were just lies, basically," he said. "That was the biggest problem I had about the whole thing: People who had absolutely nothing to do with it and had no idea about the situation and in the end were just pretty much lying."

Meanwhile, cracks in Hewitt's legendary intensity are showing. He has burned through two coaches, suffered a historic first-round upset at Wimbledon and seen his ranking fall to No. 5.

As he prepares here for the tournament beginning Monday, he isn't talking of regaining the top spot.

"It's not something that's high on the priority list," he said. "That's something I'll put my mind to next year."

Hewitt was fined $106,000 here last year, but that was reduced to $20,000 upon appeal. His $1.5 million lawsuit claims the ATP damaged his reputation. It also claims, according to documents obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald, that officials attempted to trick Hewitt into signing papers refusing to take a drug test.

The ATP says the suit is without merit.

"I think it's hurting him," NBC analyst Bud Collins said of the suit. "He's not playing well."

The tour's stance was that Hewitt had an obligation to do the interview and didn't. The request had been made a week earlier.

"You'd prefer to never have infractions, but I think the staff felt that there's enough of a history here and enough was enough," ATP CEO Mark Miles said at the time.

Hewitt isn't unwilling to give of his time. He's an international ambassador for Special Olympics and started his own tennis camp to develop youth tennis in Australia.

He just doesn't like being told to do something.

"Sometimes people are writing that we don't do enough, but a lot of the top players have things outside what the tour tries to get them to do," Hewitt said.

At home, in addition to his charity work, Hewitt is appreciated for his devotion to Davis Cup play.

But his brash style has 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."

The low point happened while playing James Blake at the 2001 U.S. Open, when Hewitt made a comment to an umpire that was interpreted by some as racist.

Australian columnists have nicknamed him Satan Hewitt, labeling him "appalling," "graceless" and "an embarrassment to tennis and Australia." He no longer speaks with them and only rarely grants interviews that aren't mandatory.

"He's very unprofessional, unfortunately," Collins said. "It's too bad, because he's not a bad kid if you get him alone."

Said Hewitt: "There are people who write articles and look for the negative aspects. I think the public (perception) is pretty good. The Australian public knows I'm doing good things for tennis and for Australian sport."

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.

But he lost his Wimbledon first-round match this year to 203rd-ranked Ivo Karlovic, and never had a defending men's champion lost so early to so lowly an opponent.

When a No. 1 player is suddenly No. 5, it'll be called a slump. Hewitt knows there's a quick way to cease that.

"I'm just going to try everything in my power to win the U.S. Open this year," he said. "I believe I'm good enough to do it."

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E-mail nschmidt@enquirer.com