As an “adopted son” of a famous Australian tennis family, Alex de Minaur has watched more closely than most the manner Cruz Hewitt, who he plays tomorrow in Washington, has dealt with a potential dual-edged sword.
Being the talented child of an icon is never easy given the enormity of the shadow a legend can cast, particularly when they are following a champion in their field of excellence. But the other slice to the sword is the exposure to greatness and the possibilities that open with talent and that is the fine-line that Hewitt Jnr is treading with distinction at the moment.
Watch the biggest Aussie sports & the best from overseas LIVE on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
De Minaur made the junior Wimbledon boys final a decade before Hewitt’s own run in July and has carried the hopes of a nation desperate to crown another male grand slam champion since winning a match at the Australian Open as a 17-year-old.
The world No.5 knows the burden of expectation but said what he has experienced in trying to become Australia’s first male major champion since Lleyton Hewitt pales in significance to the spotlight Hewitt Jnr has faced since he was a toddler.
“I think that there’s got to be a lot of respect shown to him because it is definitely not easy being an ex-No.1 in the world’s son, right?” de Minaur told Bounces this week.
“Ever since he started, he picked up the racquet, ever since he was playing junior tournaments, the expectation, the eyeballs, the spotlight was already on him, right? It’s not easy when there is that kind of weight behind your surname.
READ MORE
‘Can you believe it?’ Wild Hewitt image resurfaces as dream Demon chance confirmed
C’mon! Cruz Hewitt causes massive boilover on ATP Tour debut… after a warm-up with dad
“I think what he’s done an incredible job of is maturing and really getting a good head on his shoulders and coming into his own, becoming his own player, and really dealing with the spotlight and the expectations really, really well and ultimately coming out and having these results on his own and kind of showing that he deserves to be where he is.
“I think a lot of respect should be given to him for how he’s handled what would have been a difficult upbringing for anyone in that position. I think he is a great kid. He’s been doing great, and I think Lleyton has done an incredible job as his father and, you know, helping him out whenever he can. They’ve created a great atmosphere and that’s led to him being a very good tennis player.”
How good is Hewitt now … and what can he become?
Exactly how good Hewitt is and how far he can go is something Aussie fans have been pondering since his stunning run to the Wimbledon boys final earlier in June and even more impressive effort in Washington D.C over the past week.
No matter how he fares against de Minaur, a bona fide star of the tour who has won more matches at the 500 tier level than anyone else over the past three years, the result will not provide any definitive gauge about the young Aussie’s future success.
It is just another stepping stone for the teenager who, in encouraging fashion, has shown significant development as he has grown over the past year from lower-tier junior ranks to a big moment on the main tour this week.
Former Australian Davis Cup representative John Millman is among those who are impressed with Hewitt Jnr, who is now coached by ex-tour professional Wayne Arthurs and has jumped to a live ranking in the mid-360.
Millman, who defeated Roger Federer when reaching the US Open quarterfinals in 2018, spent a month on the road with Hewitt in Europe recently and said that he had noted further growth in the teenager in the short period since Wimbledon.
“I saw big improvements even from junior Wimbledon to what I saw when I watched his match against (Marcos) Giron at Washington,” Millman told foxsports.com.au.
“That’s a good win because Giron has been around for a long time. He’s not an easy out. I played against Giron multiple times and playing him in America, a top 100 player in America, is tough, so that was a very good win for Cruz. It just feels like, at the moment, he’s kind of on that precipice of really exploding given his improvement.”
Alex de Minaur sets up all Aussie final | 01:03
The boys singles at Wimbledon aside, Hewitt opted against playing junior events over the past year and instead honed his craft on the lower-rungs on the men’s tour from grass court events in regional Victoria to tough clay outings in Scandinavia.
There is no harder school. World-class juniors battle seasoned veterans slipping back down the rungs, or journeymen whose existence on tour can rest from winning a match or event.
The Dublin Challenger event where Hewitt won a round before the boys singles, for example, featured three-time major semi-finalist Grigor Dimitrov who subsequently made the last 16 at Wimbledon.
And Millman saw in Europe preceding that experience what it means for the young Australian to carry the Hewitt surname.
“The last name Hewitt, it’s a blessing and a curse and I saw this first-hand when I was with him in Germany,” Millman, who peaked at a ranking of 33, said.
“He’s got a target on his back. Everyone wants to beat Cruz because his last name is Hewitt and that’s always going to be the case, so that is a really tricky thing for him.
“The blessing is that he’s probably had a little bit more exposure to the players like a Demon (de Minaur) or being able to be on court with someone as brilliant as Tony Roche.”
The weapons to make it in the modern game …
For every junior star who has flourished into a grand slam champion, there are dozens who fell short at the highest level. And for every son of a gun or daughter of an icon to carve out a quality career, others have fallen short for various reasons.
Former Australian Open champion Petr Korda’s son Seb has endured an injury-riddled career but has been a top 20 player, while his sisters Nelly and Jess are golf stars.
Dual-US Open winner and former world No.1 Tracy Austin’s son Brandon Holt reached the top 100 but is currently injured, while Swedish icon Bjorn Borg’s son Leo Borg famously played Rafael Nadal in the Nordic Open two years ago but most recently lost to the world No.930 in a $15,000 tournament in Serbia last week and has a ranking in the mid-500s
The dads of American star Ben Shelton and Martin Damm, who played in the first round in Washington, were both solid tour players, so too the father of three-time major finalist Casper Ruud, who peaked at No.2.
Millman believes Hewitt has the necessary attributes to handle the transition to senior ranks in an era where the explosive power of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz has changed the way tennis is played.
“These young kids, mate, are hitting the ball so, so hard,” Millman said.
“We’ve talked about it a lot over the last 15 years about how court speeds have slowed down significantly, so they grow up now on these slower surfaces, generating great pace, and they also notice where the game is going.
“They see your Jannick Sinners and your Carlos Alcaraz hitting the absolute cover off the ball and that has been that next evolution of men’s tennis, that ball striking, that ability to generate extreme pace from the ball, so they need some really heavy firepower. And when it starts to click, it can happen quickly because they can literally hit other players off the court.”
That, Millman said, is what he noticed the most in Hewitt’s win over Giron, which followed a good qualifying effort against Zach Svajda, an American who reached the last 16 at the French Open and then the third round at Wimbledon.
“He’s very naturally a good ball striker – he’s a bit rangier than his dad – and he’s starting to understand his game a little bit more, in my opinion,” he said.
“His footwork, like you said, he’s getting better with that, so he’s getting himself into better positions, but he’s also understanding his firepower and when to pull the trigger on that forehand side. It can be a devastating shot for him and I think that was pretty noticeable in that Giron match.
“For me, Cruz is very, very talented. Sometimes when I watch him play, and when I was with him, his biggest opponent at times could be himself, if that makes sense, because he could get caught up in his own head at times because he is a bit of a perfectionist.
“But what I have noticed is mentally, for the majority of Wimbledon and at Washington so far, I’ve seen just that maturing process mentally starting to happen, and I think that’s a really positive sign for Cruz because when he gets that right … he’s a very good ball striker from the back of the court, so if he can continue to develop that mental side of his game, he won’t be qualifying for these tournaments. He’ll be in the main draw directly.”
The benefits of early exposure to greatness …
Australia’s most recent grand slam champion, former world No.1 Ash Barty, understands the difficulties that come with travelling the world as a teenage sensation.
There are clear differences in her path but the three-time major winner, who had a sabbatical from tennis in her late teens, notes her success stemmed in part from exposure to the best.
A Wimbledon junior girls champion, Barty enjoyed great success with her mate and mentor Casey Dellacqua in doubles in the infancy of her career, making several major finals.
Those experiences were invaluable, for even though she fell in qualifying or in the early rounds in singles, her doubles prowess extended her stay at grand slams to the end.
Her coach Craig Tyzzer told this journalist during the champion’s career that Barty absorbed what it took to become a great player by learning from rivals and watching how Nadal and Roger Federer went about it on court and in players’ rooms.
While famous athletes including Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf shielded their kids from the spotlight and shepherded them into different sports, Cruz Hewitt grew up among the stars, in part because his dad was still a touring professional and coach.
Footage of him hitting with Federer as a toddler went viral during Wimbledon. De Minaur and Nick Kyrgios before him were willing to trade blows with the kid as he followed the tour.
When Hewitt said this week he has memories of his dad playing in Washington, an event he won in 2004, it is because of the longevity and dedication of the Aussie Davis Cup captain.
There is no better education than to learn from the best and Hewitt Jnr has been schooled through his development by some of the finest players and coaches the game has seen.
Those coaches include Aussie greats who have guided his dad including Tony Roche, a man Millman recently branded as one of the nation’s best tennis minds.
“There’s no doubt that you start to feel more comfortable and when you start to feel comfortable, you start to believe you belong at that level. And, like I said from the very start, once you start to believe you belong, that’s half the battle,” Millman said.
“If I could have gone back and talked to myself and realised my level was good enough, because there was so much self-doubt there before, it would have helped.
“There is no doubt being exposed to all of that has helped Cruz. But he also has to have the talent and the ethic, right? You can have as much exposure as you want, but you have to do it yourself. And I want to make that crystal clear because I think some people, the armchair experts, think that he gets these opportunities because of his last name.”
It is a point Millman is determined to stress, saying it is important to correct what he considers is an incorrect narrative that aired when Hewitt was first playing junior events such as the Australian Open boys singles.
“There’s a lot of commentary out there that I see about Cruz’s last name helping him out so much, those sorts of things,” he said.
“So first things first, let’s get it absolutely straight – there is a bit of a talent crisis, in my opinion, in Australian tennis right now, but Cruz is by far on the boys’ side of things the most talented player we’ve got in Australia. So you should be supported.”
What is to come and is a big wildcard in the offing?
The Wimbledon boys’ event served as an illustration of Hewitt’s capacity to handle quality rivals on the court and the off-court pressures associated with his career.
In the third round he defeated Jamie McKenzie, a New Zealander who now lives in Germany who has some good senior results and is ranked the world’s No.2 junior.
But the most impressive triumph was his victory over Thijs Boogaard in the semi-final, for just a month earlier the Dutchman pushed former world No.1 and 2021 US Open champion Daniil Medvedev to a deciding tie-breaker in an ATP Tour event.
It demonstrated the Aussie son of a gun was comfortably in the realm of the world’s best juniors. But the past week has been even more impressive given his progression in a strong ATP Tour event.
His next rival de Minaur is the defending champion and Australia’s best man in two decades.
Top Americans Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton, elite Italian Lorenzo Musetti and Spanish sensation Raphael Jodar are among the names in the second round alongside Hewitt.
But de Minaur said the Aussie teenager is there for a reason. He has earnt his spot.
“It’s going to be a weird situation, right? I’ve seen Cruz grow up for the last ten years. I’ve seen him become the man that he is right now. I’ve hit with him countless times,” de Minaur said.
“He’s earned his way to where he is right now. He’s been playing some incredible tennis and “big boy” tennis. I’m going to have to be ready and hopefully make his life as difficult as I can make it.”
De Minaur ‘crushed’ in Wimbledon exit | 01:32
The next few weeks will be fascinating. If Hewitt can test his mentor de Minaur and reproduce his form in events in North America, a significant discussion will unfold.
It is a near certainty that the 17-year-old will receive a wildcard into next January’s Australian Open given his potential. But there is another tantalising prospect at hand as well.
By virtue of a mutual agreement, Tennis Australia will receive a wildcard into the US Open beginning later next month and as Millman said, Hewitt’s name should be in the discussion. It is worth noting Lleyton Hewitt is not involved in the selection.
Thanasi Kokkinakis is entered via an injury-protected ranking, while Alexei Popyrin has been in free-fall but his ranking at the cut-off was just three outside the cut-off, which gives him a chance of earning a direct spot.
Dane Sweeny has worked extremely hard and Chris O’Connell, Tristan Schoolkate, Alex Bolt and Bernard Tomic are among those currently sitting within range of qualifying.
For all the chatter about nepotism and favouritism, if Cruz’s surname was anything other than Hewitt, he would be firmly in the frame based on his form given his age profile.
#Adessonews seleziona nella rete articoli di particolare interesse.
Se vuoi leggere l’articolo completo clicca sul seguente link
Source link
