A New Breed of Tennis Champion

Sunday Telegraph Magazine, May 2002

Walking into the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Miami, hands in pockets, eyes unblinking, Lleyton Hewitt carries the confident, if slightly self-conscious demeanour of a young man who suspects he's being watched. He is. The concierge, a baggage porter and a well-dressed lady behind the reception desk, all quietly look up from what they're doing, and follow him with their eyes as he wanders past.

For the 21-year-old Australian, this is nothing new. He's the youngest ever number one tennis player in the world, the US Open champion, and just prior to this interview, he beat Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Tim Henman in the space of two weeks. Actually, he wiped the floor with Henman, losing just three games in a match that lasted less than an hour. It prompted the Englishman to say that Hewitt has set the benchmark for every other player on the planet to follow.

Next week, he returns to England to defend the Stella Artois Championships at the Queen's Club in London, and will then launch his assault on Wimbledon.

Being watched comes with the territory.

The first thing that strikes you about Hewitt is his size, or rather lack of it. An inch under six feet tall and weighing in at 10 stone 5 lbs, his wiry shoulders fill his white cotton shirt more than you might expect, but he's a far cry from the other muscular, teenage heavyweights rampaging around the tennis circuit. His is a build from generations gone by, when weight training was the exception rather than the rule. But he's got something. His piercing eyes, slicked back blonde hair and dimpled chin could perhaps win him the Kirk Douglas role in a remake of Spartacus.

Some wondered whether Hewitt's slight frame would ever generate the power necessary to hurt the biggest names in the game, but so far in a five-year career, his fleetness of foot, speed of thought and "I'll die before I let you beat me" attitude have more than matched the brute strength of his contemporaries.

Last September in New York , he beat Sampras, easily, to win his first Grand Slam title, the US Open.

Once outside by the swimming pool, away from the stares, he seems much more comfortable. He puts on dark sunglasses to protect his eyes from the fierce Florida sun, and looks almost unrecognisable from the boy on the tennis court with the back-to-front cap.

He leans forward, takes a deep breath and looks as though he can't believe what's happened to him over the past nine months, starting with that US Open final.

'I kept looking up at the scoreboard, seeing that I was two sets to love and 5-1 up in the final set against Pete Sampras, and thinking, "surely I can't lose from here, can I?"

'When I won, it was just a total shock. I didn't know what to think or what to do. I was standing out there next to Pete, one of the greatest players of all time, about to collect a trophy which had so many great names engraved on it. It was like I was in dreamland.'

The next day he did the American chat-show circuit and took part in a photo-shoot with his trophy in Grand Central Station, but the celebrations didn't last long. Hewitt flew home from New York on one of the last flights to leave for Australia before all aircraft in the United States were grounded. He was still in the air over the Pacific Ocean when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Centre.

'We probably landed about 8 or 9 hours after it happened and we really didn't have a clue,' he says quietly. 'At the end of the flight, we stood up to take our gear and the pilot told us to remain seated. He said he had some terrible news.'

Hewitt handles most topics of conversation, particularly those related to his own career, in exactly the same way as he treats his opponents on the tennis court. Never a moment's hesitation, never a backward step; he simply waits to see the spin on the question, steadies himself and sends back the answer in a voice that rarely wavers.

But this is different.

'When someone tells you that the World Trade Center is basically gone, that there's no such thing any more, and that the Pentagon has been hit by a plane, you can't picture in your mind what it really looks like.

'To go home with my first Grand Slam title was probably one of the greatest moments I will ever have in my life, but then to have such a tragedy happen at the same time...'

He hesitates, trying to find the right words. For the first time, he looks and sounds his age, or a good bit younger. The pitch of his voice rises a couple of semi-tones, as if it hasn't quite broken yet, and the self-assured, all-conquering world number one tennis player shows that he’s also just a young bloke from Adelaide, struggling to make sense of it all.

'You could feel it everywhere. When you walked through a shopping mall or in the local deli there was a kind of burden, a numb sort of feeling within the community," he says.

'Australia might be a long way from America, but I think every person in the country could feel pain for the victims and the fire people in New York and what they were going through.'

As the weeks passed, the world tried to get back to normal, and for Hewitt, that meant getting back on a plane.

'It was tough at the start. I had to fly a couple of weeks later to a tournament in Europe, and the only flight from Australia went over Afghanistan !' he says, as if he must have been mad to even consider it.

But, he explains, he has always had the ability to block things out and focus on the task in hand.

That much was illustrated when, while Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati refused to get on an aeroplane through fear of a repeat terrorist attack, Hewitt headed to Sydney to compete in the Tennis Masters Cup, the last tournament of the year. After a couple of wins, he had to beat his friend and role-model Patrick Rafter, the two-time Wimbledon runner-up, to become the youngest ever world number one.

'There was a lot of pressure playing in my home country and it was tough to play my best mate on tour, knowing that one of my greatest ever moments could be about to happen after the match finished.'

It didn't stop him winning though, and Rafter was the first to congratulate him at the net. Hewitt barely knew what to do with himself.

'I was on such a high but it was still only the middle of the week and I knew I had to come out and play the next day. I won that and then had to come out again and win the final. It was a pretty funky week.'

Being the best and being a celebrity both come with the title of world number one, and some players find it a difficult equation to balance. Even Pete Sampras, who ruled the world for six years, admits now that he was too single-minded. He has since started to enjoy life and let his hair down more, but his tennis has suffered.

Jason Stoltenberg, himself a former Wimbledon semi-finalist and now Hewitt's coach, believes that his pupil is only just starting to come to terms with the demands.

'I think he's comfortable being known as the best player, but you also have to take on the role model," says Stoltenberg. 'People are looking up to you, wanting to hear a lot about you, trying to shake your hand. It's something that's going to take a little time.'

Born in Adelaide, Hewitt hit his first tennis ball aged six at a local club where his parents played socially.

His family were already heavily bathed in sport so it was little wonder that Hewitt became a professional athlete (his younger sister, Jaslyn, is now also a top junior tennis player). His mother was a South Australian netball star and PE teacher, and his father, uncle and grandfather all played Australian Rules Football. Dad Glynn represented Richmond , the famous Victorian club, for two years, and at 13, Lleyton, also a useful footy player, had to make the choice between Aussie Rules and tennis.

Picked for a national tennis squad to go to Europe for six months during the Aussie Rules season, he won three tournaments on clay, a surface he had never even seen before. After that, there was no looking back.

At 15, he qualified for the Australian Open and a year later he faced Agassi in the semi-finals of his hometown event in Adelaide . The goal, he says, was 'to go out and not get embarassed' by Agassi, a player whose picture adorned Hewitt's bedroom wall at home.

Jason Stoltenberg was due to meet the winner in the final of that event, and had never seen Hewitt play before. He could barely believe his eyes.

There on centre court was Agassi, and a small boy scuttling around the baseline in a shirt that looked three sizes too big.

Agassi, a former Wimbledon champion, threw the kitchen sink at Hewitt, but the little Australian didn't flinch. He chased and got back every ball until eventually, Agassi began to miss.

"It's easy to say this in hindsight, but I truly thought that this kid was something special," says Stoltenberg.

"To think that you can beat Agassi at 16 is one thing, but to actually go out and do it is another. He went toe-to-toe against one of the biggest legends in the game and beat him 7-6, 7-6. That's pretty impressive. Then he beat me in the final."

Titles and accolades followed in equal number. When he beat Sampras on grass in the final of the Stella Artois two years ago, the American called him 'the future of the game.'

His on-court attitude also attracted plenty of attention, and comparisons to Jimmy Connors. Prior to matches he regularly listened to the soundtrack of his favourite film 'Rocky', to get fired up, and it showed.

Winning shots were accompanied by a scream of 'C'mon!' as if, for a split second, someone had plugged his body into the mains.

It is, he explains with a smile, something that has been in him for as long as he can remember.

"I've taken a lot of the emotion and the fighting spirit from what I learned playing footy (Aussie Rules) back in my younger days, but I also think it was born in me - to go out, compete hard, and play with a lot of emotion. I feel like that's when I play my best tennis."

He grins at the parallel with Connors, but bluntly refutes the suggestion that, like Connors, he is capable of theatrically timing his outbursts for maximum effect on the crowd and his opponent.

"It's not something I plan on doing, it just comes naturally," he says, defensively. "I can't just switch it on and off, it happens when it feels right."

Does it make a difference how many people are watching? He shakes his head.

"I can get pumped up whether I'm in front of five people or 5,000 people, but crowds like getting involved. If they see a player out there diving around and giving 100% all the time, they would rather go for that than a guy walking around with his head down, sobbing at the other end."

Hewitt's blood and guts approach to tennis isn't for the faint-hearted though, and it hasn't always gone down well.

On court he constantly simmers close to boiling point, and like Connors, he's had his share of run-ins with officials. Some of his opponents, such as the Spanish player Alex Corretja, have voiced their disapproval at his on-court exhortations, claiming them to be unsportsmanlike. Former player Brad Gilbert was once quoted as saying that he wouldn't be surprised to see Hewitt 'get whacked in the locker room before long'. Hewitt though, insists he is motivating himself, rather than attempting to derail his opponents.

During his run to the US Open final, he was accused of making racist remarks to a black line judge. Later viewed on video, the tournament referee adjudged Hewitt's comments, in a marathon battle with African-American James Blake, to have been misinterpreted. Blake also gave Hewitt the benefit of the doubt.

Hewitt maintained his innocence, insisting he never meant anything racial, and it's difficult to equate such a raging figure with the quiet, polite, unassuming young fellow sitting here by the pool.

Many young tennis players, when presented with fame, fortune and adulation, develop a taste for the fast life, but Hewitt seems to lead an unusually wholesome existence. He still lives at home with his parents, who regularly travel with him on the road, he's had the same girlfriend - 19 year-old Belgian Kim Clijsters, a top woman player - for over two years, and former Australian player John Newcombe once remarked about his tidiness: "You'd go into his room and think no-one lives in it. Everything is put away. It's the neatest room you've ever seen in your life."

Hewitt has earned the best part of £5 million on-court, and has a lucrative clothing endorsement with Nike, but after winning the Tennis Masters Cup last year, in which he picked up a £500,000 winner’s cheque, he said:

'I don't know what I'll do with the money. Don't have a house; haven't got a car. I'm pretty basic, I suppose. Don't do a lot, actually, apart from support the Adelaide Crows (Aussie Rules football team) and play a bit of golf.'

He admits to being 'quite shy' off the court, and someone happiest in the company of his mates or Clijsters, so what actually happens to him when he gets out on court?

His coach, Stoltenberg, sees a bit of Jekyll and Hyde in the boy from Adelaide.

"He's a guy that loves his privacy, not the sort of fella who's going to invite you into his living room and tell you all about his life, but when he's on the court, something else takes over. In the heat of the moment, he's such a fiery little bugger, he could possibly say things and then come off and regret them, but he's a good guy, he's got a good heart and he means well. But on the court, you can see the fire in his eyes, and he won't put it out until he shakes hands. "

That fire will be burning brightly when he returns to the Queen's Club, intent on becoming the first player since John McEnroe to win the Stella Artois three times in a row.

"It's a big ask because there will be those two pommies there," says Hewitt, smiling in reference to Henman and Greg Rusedski. "But it's been an incredible run and I always seem to play my best tennis there."

And what of Wimbledon, where he has so far never been beyond the fourth round?

"I feel I am getting better and better at Wimbledon and if I can get through the first week I have a realistic chance. It's big. I used to stay up late or get up in the middle of the night to watch the matches when I was a kid. "

And as he retreats through the lobby of the hotel with all eyes on him, he knows that this year, it will be him who's being watched.

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