Wimbledon 2015: Lleyton Hewitt bows out at 17th tournament visit

Lleyton Hewitt, who farewelled Wimbledon at his 17th visit, sums up the gritty, gnarly DNA of a nation.

Former champion Lleyton Hewitt acknowledges the crowd following his defeat to Jarkko Nieminen at his last ever singles match at Wimbledon.

Australian tennis is in rude health. This is partly down to Nick Kyrgios, who underlined his nascent bad-boy status with a “dirty scum” outburst during a first-round breeze, but mainly because of a bloody-minded veteran who looked as though he would sooner rip out his heart with an old wooden racket than make way for the new era.

Lleyton Hewitt played his last match at Wimbledon overnight. His serve was never anything special and there have been scores of more powerful players, but if you want someone to sum up the gritty, gnarly DNA of a nation then the 2002 champion is your man.

Two medical time-outs, three match points saved and four hours of self-flagellating fare added up to the most fitting of farewells after 17 Wimbledon visits.

A tone-deaf Aussie choir spent the afternoon chanting its support for Kyrgios and Hewitt on No 2 Court. It was a joke that you sensed was wearing thin for Jarkko Nieminen, the Finnish killjoy who beat Hewitt 3-6 6-3 4-6 6-0 11-9 and certainly for one woman who complained to the Wimbledon office.

“Ah, they could go and sit with the Barmy Army,” Hewitt said when asked if he had any advice for those who did not understand the Australian way of doing things.

Nieminen, who faces Novak Djokovic in what will probably be his last match at Wimbledon, joined the match umpire and that phalanx of iffy larynxes by standing and applauding the leading man as he exited the stage, nothing left.

“That pretty much sums up my career and my mentality and never-say-die attitude,” Hewitt said of his efforts. “I’ve lived by that for 19 years on tour. I’m proud that I left it all out there.”

Midway through the match, Roger Federer tweeted his thanks. The admiration was as telling as the comparison. That they were both born in 1981 is a reminder of how quickly success came for Hewitt; he retires next year, while Federer remains this year’s model. Their styles are also polar opposites. Federer wears bespoke blazers with gilded crests, while Hewitt wears the mien of a particularly difficult velociraptor.

This was a day to love Australia a little. Kyrgios’s 6-0 6-2 7-6 defeat of Diego Schwartzman was a pleasing appetiser. The man who embarrassed Rafael Nadal last year, when they were ranked 144th and 1st in the world respectively, has the weaponry to hurt anyone. Some, Pat Rafter included, feel he is too prone to hurting rackets to be supported, but he could not care less.

After cruising through two sets, the No 26 seed contested an umpire’s call, with some justification, and demanded to see the referee. Soon afterwards, he made his “dirty scum” remark. “I wasn’t referring to the ref at all,” he explained. “It was towards myself.” When asked why he would berate himself thus, he said: “Cause I can.”

Sport needs characters, he says, and so he will not be reading the big book of tennis etiquette any time soon. “It’s good when you see someone who’s raw and just plays the game the way they play and doesn’t really worry about the other stuff.” Would he be concerned if fined for his remark? “Wouldn’t bother me one bit,” he said.

Good luck to him. Had Hewitt been blessed with those jaw-dropping groundstrokes then he might have had more than two grand-slam titles. If the future finds that Kyrgios has a Hewitt heart he will probably win Wimbledon.

Lest we forget as he departs, Hewitt was a game-changer. When he won in 2002 he was the first baseliner to do so for a decade. Now he is a totem for a different generation. Asked what Hewitt meant to him and his peers, Kyrgios replied: “Maybe him and Rafa are the greatest competitors of all time. He’s huge.”

This is the largest Aussie contingent since 1997 and Hewitt surely has played some part in that statistic. He will be missed. For any English sporting summer to be truly memorable it needs its dose of Australia, and it was reassuring to hear Hewitt say his 2002 semi-final against Tim Henman was one of his most treasured memories because of “the English-Australian rivalry” and having the crowd against him.

They were with him today, but the battle-scarred veteran was not about to get sentimental amid all those Poms on Pimm’s. “I don’t cry easily,” he said.

No kidding.

The Times