The kid in the backwards white baseball cap raced towards the net, poked the ball into the open court and watched as the scoreboard ticked over for his first points of the match. Cruz Hewitt clenched his fist and punched the air in front of him.
It’s a scene the more seasoned Wimbledon crowds know well – the fist pump once performed by the man sitting beneath a cap and sunglasses on the benches near Court No. 5, and to whom his son’s gesture was unmistakably aimed.
Lleyton Hewitt, the man who triumphed here 23 years ago, joined the modest huddle of spectators to support his 16-year-old son during his second-round boys’ singles defeat to 11th seed Oskari Paldanius. He did the same when Hewitt Jr dispatched Russian Savva Rybkin inside 51 minutes in the previous round.
It would have been easy for passers-by balancing their Pimms to shuffle past the former champion and world No. 1, sitting next to his actress wife Bec, completely unaware of the legend in their midst. But there was no missing the Hewitt on court.
Same backwards cap, same Yonex racket, same fist pumps, same flashes of petulance when things went awry. ‘I tried that,’ he snapped at his illustrious father after Lleyton tried to give him a piece of advice. ‘It’s not fine,’ he barked to a word of encouragement at 3-0 in the second set. ‘It’s nearly four-love!’
‘Stop looking so cool, Dad,’ Cruz muttered on one occasion while also at one point accusing his old man of ‘acting for the cameras’ – even though Lleyton spent most of the contest sitting motionless unless he was applauding and shouting messages like, ‘Here you go, mate, all day!’ or ‘Great spots, mate!’
Father-and-son Lleyton and Cruz Hewitt looked strained as they touched down at Melbourne Airport on Tuesday, following the young tennis prodigy’s Wimbledon appearance
Lleyton has gone to great lengths to keep his son out of the media spotlight as he focuses on his fledgling career
If he were a few inches shorter, Cruz Hewitt (seen at Wimbledon) would be a carbon copy of his famous father Lleyton, complete with the backwards cap, Yonex racket and fist pumps
Cruz also gets emotional on court, just like his dad – as he showed in a headline-making display that saw him shout at his father during his loss in the Wimbledon boys’ singles (pictured)
Former world No. 1 Lleyton (circled in the crowd at the All England Club this year) has been a courtside fixture at Cruz’s matches
It’s not the first time the young man’s emotions have spilled over like that. You suspect it won’t be the last, either.
Even as the afternoon sun baked the grass on the outside courts, it was difficult not to sense something of a shadow cast by the looming structure of Centre Court behind him, where his father triumphed over David Nalbandian in the 2002 men’s singles final.
There’s pressure and then there’s following in those footsteps on these lawns.
‘There’s a lot of expectation on him and that’s tough to deal with,’ former Australian tennis star and 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash tells Mail Sport.
‘When he won his first-round match here, it was the third or fourth story down – who has that happen as a junior?
‘Laura Robson won the juniors and it was front-page news instead of Venus Williams winning the singles. I shook my head and said that was a recipe for disaster and she never came close to realising her potential.
‘I won the juniors here and had expectations to win Slams one day and it’s not fun. It can be a curse. Cruz just needs to keep his head down.’
Perhaps that’s why Hewitt’s team, including his father, keeps such a tight circle around him when it comes to media attention. Interview requests were twice turned down this week.
Aussie tennis icon Pat Cash (pictured at Wimbledon this year) has revealed why he’s worried Cruz could follow other young stars and fail to realise his potential
Lleyton (pictured with wife Bec at Wimbledon) keeps a tight rein on his son’s media exposure
At 188cm, Cruz is markedly taller than his father – and has ‘the genetics to be successful’ with his big serve and power-based game, Cash believes
The former world No. 1 was seen having a tense phone call while waiting at baggage claim
Like father, like son, then, as Hewitt Sr also opted not to speak to the media on Tuesday morning ahead of the start of the jovial invitational doubles matches on what should have been a heartwarming day when both father and son would feature on the same afternoon.
Brit Mark Ceban, Cruz’s doubles partner, revealed a lighter side to Hewitt Jr, saying: ‘He’s an easy-going guy, he’s great to get along with and is a good teammate.
‘He’s confident, which is important for a tennis player, and he’s got good tactical awareness. Even in singles, he’s a very solid player – he beat me last week!
‘Off the court, he’s really polite and well-mannered, and that’s important too.’
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Ever since he was the size of a racket, Cruz has been around professional tennis and a staple of the national game. Lleyton has been Australia’s Davis Cup captain since 2016 and everyone remembers the tiny kid at matches.
When he was six, he hit balls with Roger Federer at the Australian Open. He trained at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Spain.
Last year, he got the opportunity to be the Australia team’s ‘orange boy’, a long-standing tradition where a youngster is selected to assist the team with tasks like getting drinks and oranges.
At 6ft 2in (188cm), Cruz is already taller than his dad. He recently posted a pair of pictures alongside Carlos Alcaraz: the first from 2021 showing the 12-year-old Hewitt barely up to the Spaniard’s shoulders; the next picture showed Cruz now taller than the two-time Wimbledon champion.
‘He’s got the genetics to be successful but it doesn’t always work out that way, as we know,’ adds Cash.
‘He’s taller than his dad, he’s got a good serve and power. That is exactly what he needs. He’s a good athlete – Lleyton was a freakish athlete.
Thanks to his dad’s standing in the game, Cruz has been around superstars like Carlos Alcaraz all his life, with these pics showing how much he has shot up between ages 12 (left) and 16
Cruz is pictured with his father after winning his first major singles title in 2021
While the two-handed backhand remains, Cruz is much more of a baseline guy, with a decent serve for his age thanks to his height and a thumping forehand. That’s already drawn comparisons to tennis bad boy Nick Kyrgios.
‘He has been exposed to the highest level of tennis, regularly hitting with the best players in the Australian Davis Cup team and some of the best players in the world.
‘He’s got a great tennis IQ. There’s a chance for him. I think he’ll be successful on tour, but it’s impossible to tell how successful. We will see how he progresses in the next few years when he stops growing.
‘He doesn’t think he knows it all – that is very important. The amount of young players that think they do and stop listening. He’s got a good appetite to learn and he works really hard. The last thing he needs is more pressure on him.’
Earlier this year, he was handed a wildcard into the Australian Open qualifying draw and Cruz hit with Jannik Sinner and Alcaraz. He is a close friend of Katie Boulter’s fiancé Alex de Minaur, who gives him regular advice. They share the same coach, Peter Luczak.
He’s already into the world top 50 among the junior ranks despite being just 16.
On the court, he’s much less of a ‘grinder’ than Lleyton was – that tenacious, hustle-and-bustler, scampering all over the court determined never to let any point slip away.
Kyrgios caused a stir earlier this year when he responded to a picture Cruz posted alongside Sinner with a comment saying ‘Love ya Cruz, but this is wild’ before adding another reply with a needle emoji. Sinner twice tested positive for a banned substance and served a three-month ban.
Hewitt’s whipping forehand was on show, albeit too briefly, at Wimbledon this week.
‘One thing he’s never been shy of is playing on big courts or in front of people,’ Lleyton told reporters last year. ‘He takes it in his stride, it’s his journey, and it’s a very long journey.’
That much is clear. Cruz had no answer to Paldanius’s power in the singles against a lad 18 months older than him. The Finn would go on to knock Hewitt out of the doubles on Wednesday. His first Wimbledon is over, but you suspect it won’t be his last.
