TennisNH

20 Years Ago: Hewitt Sweeps The Field In Sydney

11-Nov-2021 17:05:00 | ATP World Tour

As the 2001 season progressed, Lleyton Hewitt and his good mate Patrick Rafter talked about it a lot. Wouldn’t it be something, the Australians constantly asked each other, if both qualified for the ATP Tennis Masters Cup, to be played for the first (and only) time in Sydney?

Rafter, born in Mount Isa, Queensland, had made the final eight in 1997 after his breakthrough victory at the US Open. Hewitt, from Adelaide, had qualified the year before in Lisbon but fell in the round-robin stage.

Sure enough, two decades ago, it came to pass.

“Being able to play in our backyard,” Hewitt told ATPTour.com, “was a massive achievement for both of us”.

What they didn’t anticipate: Playing each other in a match laced with all kinds of historic repercussions, for Hewitt was attempting to become the youngest ATP No. 1 ever.

He was still only 19 at the start of the year when he won the Adidas International tournament in Sydney. Two more victories, at Queen’s Club and ‘s-Hertogenbosch, laid the foundation for the biggest win of his burgeoning career, at the 2001 US Open. Hewitt knocked off former world No. 1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the semi-finals and, in what felt like a transitional moment, four-time champion Pete Sampras in the final. He went on to win his fifth title of the year in Tokyo. His 77 match wins – including a winning streak of 17 – led all year-end participants.

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“Throughout that whole year I hadn’t focused on getting to World No. 1 at all,” Hewitt remembered. “It hadn’t crossed my mind, not even winning a Grand Slam. Then the US Open came along and I played fantastic to put myself in a position, finished the year off really strongly as well.

“Then all of a sudden, going into my home end-of-season Masters Cup.”

The city was excited, too, fresh off its time in the global spotlight a year earlier with the staging of the 2000 Olympic Games. The Sydney Superdome, a 17,000-seat venue that had hosted both gymnastics and basketball competitions, would welcome the world’s best tennis players.

Hewitt was seeded No. 2, behind defending champion Gustavo Kuerten and ahead of No. 3 Andre Agassi. All three athletes found themselves in position to finish as year-end No. 1. The pressure Hewitt felt, playing at home with so much at stake, was enormous.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “It was basically in each of our control. If we went out and won the Masters Cup at the time we would finish No. 1.”