You Know, Hewitt’s Drive Says It All

The game was the game.

For Lleyton Hewitt, it was as simple as that. He didn’t care if the final Davis Cup match of the Australia-U.S. quarterfinal tie was meaningless, the dead rubber, in tennis parlance. The 18-year-old Aussie wanted to test himself against Jim Courier at Longwood Cricket Club.

His teammates and coaches--still celebrating the historic win--chuckled at the ultracompetitive teen, who was showing his Aussie Rules Football heritage. Captain John Newcombe counseled the Davis Cup rookie, saying a match against Alex O’Brien was not a bad thing.

“There’s not many opportunities when you get to play Jim Courier, a former No. 1 and to play him in Davis Cup, even when it’s a dead rubber, I was looking forward to that,” said the No. 32-ranked Hewitt, whose father Glynn once played Aussie Rules Football.

“But Newc really tried to put a good attitude into me. He was telling me, ‘You could be playing this guy in two, three weeks time. So go out there and try to get on top on him.’ ”

Hewitt won the match in straight sets, giving Australia a 4-1 victory. He traveled to Los Angeles for his next tournament, the Mercedes-Benz Cup, which starts today at UCLA. His first-round opponent? O’Brien, of course.

“It turns out Newc’s right again,” Hewitt said, chuckling.

Overshadowed by the final day of Davis Cup chaos was Hewitt’s composed play. He immediately set the tone by winning the first match, taking out veteran Todd Martin in four sets, showing few nerves.

Most observers felt Hewitt would not succumb to Davis Cup jitters. He had learned a harsh third-round lesson well at Wimbledon on Centre Court, when he was overwhelmed by Boris Becker and the occasion.

That was a rare bump for the teenager, regarded as the future of men’s tennis with one title and two other appearances in finals in 1999. This will be his first appearance at the Los Angeles event, and the seventh-seeded Hewitt joins a strong field of French Open champion Andre Agassi, six-time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras, last year’s finalist Tim Henman of Great Britain and former No. 1 Marcelo Rios of Chile.

His Davis Cup teammate Patrick Rafter, the new No. 1, won’t be in Los Angeles this time. Hewitt has defeated Rafter twice this year, but that hasn’t stopped Rafter from getting after him at Davis Cup on the topic of teen-speak, teasing him about saying, “You know.”

Hewitt acknowledged he left himself wide open.

“The problem was I did an interview at Wimbledon and I went home and actually saw that interview and I came back and I told him [Rafter] that I kept saying, ‘You know,’ ” Hewitt said. “Because I told him Pat was just sitting there waiting for me to say it.

“Every time I said it, he would just hit me under the table. It’s out of my head now. It just sort of crept in. It’s out of it at the moment. But you never know when it might come back.”

And if it does, Rafter and Newcombe will be there to remind him.

DAVIS CUP POSTSCRIPT

The kind analysis of the Davis Cup controversy was that U.S. captain Tom Gullikson simply outfoxed himself in trying to match wits and wisdom with the Australians, mainly Newcombe.

By attempting to create doubt in the Aussie camp--the suggestion that Sampras could replace Martin in the reverse singles--backfired spectacularly and put questions in the mind of Martin and Sampras.

“I guess the thing that was unsettling to me was after Saturday when we won the doubles, I kind of felt Tom opened the door to expectation of me playing on Sunday,” said Sampras. “And I guess that didn’t sit too well with me.”

Nor with Martin, who learned of the possibility from an Australian reporter. All this set the stage for skepticism when Martin really did feel ill the next day. The neutral doctor, aware of the climate, probably had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. And he wasn’t.

Sampras called it “probably one of the more interesting days I’ve ever had in tennis.” He had just finished eating a greasy omelet and was watching the British Open, not worrying about playing Rafter, when he got the phone call from Gullikson telling him to get ready to play.

Nearly everyone got caught in the crossfire, including Sampras, who didn’t want to alienate his teammates by rolling in and playing singles.

“It was a double-edged sword and we got stabbed pretty good,” Sampras said.

Gullikson acknowledged, in hindsight, he would not accept a doubles-only condition again. If you look at the whole Boston fiasco, that alone raises questions about Gullikson’s continued captaincy. But it should not be forgotten that the United States’ Davis Cup campaign last year, ending with a 4-1 loss to Italy in the semifinals, was hindered by the installation of a slow indoor court, which favored the Italians.

Those sort of back-to-back miscues would prompt serious review . . . in any sport.

NOTABLE

* The two sites in contention to hold the Fed Cup final between the United States and Russia on Sept. 18-19, are both in California, according to the USTA. One is at Stanford University, which is hosting the Bank of the West tournament this week. The other is the George E. Barnes Tennis Center in Ocean Beach, near San Diego’s Sea World. It was expanded in 1997 and features 24 lighted courts, including 20 hard courts and four clay courts. This week, USTA officials are scheduled to make surveys of the sites in San Diego and Palo Alto.

* Gretchen Magers is organizing a reunion of retired female pros during the TIG Tennis Classic at the La Costa Resort and Spa on Aug. 1. The day of activities will include tennis, golf, volleyball and a reunion party. Donations will be made through ACE Foundation (Athletic Council for Education) and proceeds from the charity event will go to Andrea Jaeger’s Kids’ Stuff Foundation in Aspen. For more information, contact Magers at 1-800-965-4107.