Hewitt was widely hailed throughout his career for wringing every ounce of talent out of himself. In recognition of his storied 20 years on the ATP tour, the Spin hereby counts down 21 amusing morsels about Lleyton. Andy Murray named his dog Rusty after Hewitt. When he qualified for the Aussie Open at age 15, some of the ballpersons were older than him. He's going to be his country's Davis Cup captain. Roger Federer "loved every moment of it, the good and the bad," in playing Hewitt.
Lleyton leaves the game with a mark against Fed. Unsurprisingly, Murray himself also "loved it" when it came to sparring with the year-old Aussie. In truth, they played a sanctioned singles match just once, with Murray prevailing in three sets on a San Jose hard court in Nick Kyrgios doesn't actually think Hewitt should retire.
Hewitt has mentored Kyrgios for six months. So yes, he has his retired life's work cut out for him. Cahill, who coached Hewitt from before his first tournament win in until the end of , yesterday said he expected the Australian No. Only once before has Hewitt entered an Australian Open without playing at least one match in the preceding week: in , when he was suffering from chickenpox and crashed to Alberto Martin in the first round. This year, he played two matches in Adelaide before withdrawing with a calf injury from the Sydney International, returning to the practice court only on Thursday.
Russell, in contrast, has claimed consecutive Challenger events either side of Christmas, in Honolulu and New Caledonia, then won three qualifying matches last week at Melbourne Park, totalling eight already this year. None was at Tour-level, but the gritty baseliner is nothing if not match-hardened. Asked whether he believed he could exploit Hewitt's relative inactivity, Russell said: "I hope so. I don't know how many he played in Adelaide.
And I've played eight, so hopefully it will help me a little bit, and I hope he's a little bit rusty, and I come out playing well, and we'll see what happens.
Add to that expenditure on equipment and my family would go bankrupt within a year of me attempting such an exercise. After that, the Australian began fading away.
Numerous injuries meant he could never recover from the slump. He began losing regularly to unseeded players, players I had never heard of.
And since it was easier to support the victor, to avoid disappointment and heartbreak, my loyalties shifted to Roger Federer, the man who gracefully danced around the tennis court never breaking into a sweat, while producing shots of breathtaking beauty. It was this same tenacity that that made him exciting to watch even late into his career.
At the US Open, when he was 32, which is ancient in tennis years, he came back from a two-sets-to-one deficit to overcome the champion and 6th seed Juan Martin Del Potro, eventually losing in the fourth round. His last three Grand Slam outings have all gone to a deciding set.
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