Officials Can’t Make Judgment on Hewitt

The evidence was inconclusive and Grand Slam officials could not determine whether Lleyton Hewitt’s comments in his five-set second-round victory against James Blake were racial in nature.

“I can’t speak to the intent of anything,” U.S. Open referee Brain Earley said Saturday about the controversy of the previous day. “That’s the hard part for me and Stefan [Fransson] and the other [International Tennis Federation] Grand Slam supervisors. We are now put in a position where we’re asked to determine the intent of something and that is a very, very steep hill to climb.”

Still, Earley said the officials were unable to determine that Hewitt did not mean to make a racial reference. Hewitt said Friday that the comments were not racist.

In the third set, Hewitt was upset with an African-American line judge and said, “Look at him. Look at him and you tell me what the similarity is. Just get him off the court.” On videotape, he was shown waving his finger as he spoke.

After the match, Blake, an African-American, had felt the comments were directed at him and said it bothered him for a few points. He also told reporters that he made a joking comment to Hewitt during the match that he and the linesman were both Americans.

On Saturday, Hewitt met with Blake and issued a statement, saying: “I have spoken with James Blake and we discussed the situation. I apologized for unintentionally causing an incident yesterday, which detracted from a hard-fought match and James’ outstanding performance.”

Officials reviewed the videotape, interviewed Blake, Hewitt and the chair umpire and also looked at a comment from the line judge, Marion Johnson of Compton. Earley was asked whether any African-American outside of the decision-making group was consulted about the controversy. Earley said no.

Hewitt, on Friday, was given the opportunity but did not provide a description of the dialogue with the chair umpire.

“His explanation is that he was--he couldn’t understand why the chair umpire didn’t see that this was the same line umpire who had made the same mistake, to use Lleyton’s words, twice, in very short order,” Earley said. “He couldn’t understand that the chair umpire didn’t realize it was the same guy. I will tell you, there was no gesture in the direction of Mr. Blake when he made the comments about the similarities.”

Blake was ready to move on after his conversation with Hewitt on Saturday.

“People have said maybe I’m naive and maybe I give people the benefit of the doubt too much,” Blake said. “I’d rather be that. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Thomas and Betty Blake had said their son preferred to ignore slights in his junior days and never wanted to blow issues out of proportion.

“For the betterment of tennis and James’ wishes, we’re not going to make any comment on it,” Thomas said. “James wants the game to go on and put all this behind him. James is taking the high road.”

CBS commentator Mary Carillo was quite critical on Friday night, as was Patrick McEnroe on Saturday, saying Blake took the high road and Hewitt took the low road.