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I’ve never understood the boo-boys attitude towards Lleyton Hewitt. You know the ones. The people who, while the rest of us are decked out in a green and gold flag with faces painted watching the little fighter on court, are sticking pins into the nearest voodoo doll with a backwards cap on.
They delight in his downfall and smile, as if proven right, when he is ousted in the first round of a grand slam. For those select people this week would’ve been a good one
Hewitt was knocked out in the first round of the US Open on Tuesday morning for the first time in his career.
The South Australian born base-line brawler took Frenchman Paul Henri-Mathieu to five sets, but in reality was never in the match. Mathieu is a 28-year-old, 185cm veteran of the tour who is currently ranked 109th in the world, yet he monstered Hewitt at Flushing Meadows.
Whenever Hewitt’s name is mentioned in conversations these days, it’s usually accompanied by “well he used to be good”. But where’s the respect?
The guy is a two-time major champion with 28 singles titles to his name. He was the youngest ever player to qualify for the Australian Open at just 15 years and 11 months and held the number one ranking in the world for 75 straight weeks. All of this we seem to forget far too easily.
What we should realise, is that Hewitt has battled injury for the better part of the last five years, but still won one title every year during that period.
In 2010, he was beaten by Roger Federer in the round of 16 at the Australian Open, ran into a red hot Rafael Nadal in the round of 32 at Roland Garros, beat Federer in the final at Halle and bowed out in the round of 16 after losing to Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon.
His exit at the US Open came on the back of a limited preparation and was largely inevitable.
How anyone can classify that as a failure is beyond me.
His downfall is that he doesn’t play enough events during the year and can’t pick up enough ranking points. This leaves him facing early match-ups against players ranked inside the top-five in the world.
His former coach Roger Rasheed said this week, that this situation is likely to only get worse. His wife, Bec, is carrying the couples third child and Hewitt traditionally scales back his workload when a new bundle arrives. So he should. You can’t criticise him for that, although some will.
Rasheed predicts we’ll only see Hewitt play two to three tournaments outside of the majors over the next 12-months. So you can boo if you like, after all it’s your right to do so.
But before you do, think about what the man has actually achieved, and see if you can find it within you to squeeze out a “c’mon!!!!”.
You can follow luke on twitter @luke_doherty and on Sky News Australia
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