When I started playing tennis in 2003, international tennis was in the midst of a transitional phase between the old guard of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Michael Chang and the upcoming "Big Four" generation of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
It was also the last year till 2012 that four different players won the Grand Slams. Federer hadn’t yet started winning everything in sight, nor had we learnt to admire his skill and wizardry because David Foster Wallace was still to write his famed “Roger Federer as Religious Experience” piece. Indian tennis coaches and old relatives would tell us to play like Agassi, “He was hitting shots from the baseline since he was eight years old”. But I always idolised Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt and whenever anyone asked me why, the answer always was, “because he’s got great attitude”.
I played at a group coaching academy, where if you were lucky, the other kids would come late or not at all, and you would get more time to play. As a result, I was never really able to develop a game with too many weapons in it. My forehand was the best stroke, but by no means was it lethal, it was just a better way to get the ball over the net. I didn’t know it then, but I was what people in the tennis world called a counter puncher or that most reviled of tennis players ‒ the grinder.
Nicknamed Rusty because of his resemblance to the young character played by Anthony Michael Hall in National Lampoon’s Vacation, Hewitt was the ideal player to look up to. He, too, didn’t seem to have too many weapons in his arsenal. Sure, he had a delightful lob, but that’s not a shot anyone would describe as fiery or explosive. He was the perfect defensive counter-puncher, he was Nadal before Nadal. He chased down every ball his opponent threw at him. If he couldn’t outhit his opponents who were often taller and stronger, he would most certainly outsmart them. In Agassi’s autobiography Open, he earned the praise of the seven-time Slam champion who called him, “one of the best shot selectors in the history of tennis”.
'C’mon!'
Then there was the intensity he brought to every match. He could be two-sets-to-love down but he would yell “C’mon!” after every point, even after unforced errors and double faults, which were a big no-no in the gentleman’s game of lawn tennis. To an Indian tennis player, who was constantly being told to study and become an engineer, he was the best role model. He was anti-establishment. He was sticking it to the man and doing things nobody wanted him to be doing. He would, sometimes, after a long rally raise his right arm and touch it to his forehead in a sort of reverse arrow and yell, “C’mon!” while looking directly at his opponent. For days afterwards, in practice matches and tournaments, we would imitate this exact gesture, trying harder and harder to come up with winners. Getting a chance to yell “C’mon!” and taunt your opponent was more satisfying that actually winning the point.
I began in my teens, too late to actively consider playing tennis as a career. Watching Hewitt play, made it easy to believe, that if you wanted it enough and tried really hard, you could end up playing tennis professionally. For a brief time, I even considered it seriously and was almost able to convince my parents. We met other coaches who watched me play, “He is giving 100% but in this kind of academy, he will get only 10%-15% back.” Other parents of tennis prodigies told my parents to put me in an international school, one that would get over by 12 o’clock, so I could have the rest of the day to practice. But the expense was too great: the school fees were astronomical and private coaches and tennis courts charged hundreds of rupees per hour. Add to that expenditure on equipment and my family would go bankrupt within a year of me attempting such an exercise.
Change of loyalties
By the 2005 US Open, Hewitt had lost in seven consecutive Grand Slams to the eventual champions, losing to Federer on five occasions. After that, the Australian began fading away. Numerous injuries meant he could never recover from the slump. He began losing regularly to unseeded players, players I had never heard of. Then there was the discovery that he hadn’t really come up his unique reverse arrow salute. It was called the "Vicht" and was popularised by Niclas Kroon, a tennis player in the 1980’s who had even got it trademarked. And since it was easier to support the victor, to avoid disappointment and heartbreak, my loyalties shifted to Roger Federer, the man who gracefully danced around the tennis court never breaking into a sweat, while producing shots of breathtaking beauty. It became easier to admire him because I knew I wasn’t ever going to play tennis, and even if I did, I wouldn’t play like him.
Sometimes, I watched old tennis videos that showcased Hewitt’s never-say-die attitude, like this one from the 2005 Indians Wells Masters. It was this same tenacity that that made him exciting to watch even late into his career. At the 2013 US Open, when he was 32, which is ancient in tennis years, he came back from a two-sets-to-one deficit to overcome the 2009 champion and 6th seed Juan Martin Del Potro, eventually losing in the fourth round. His last three Grand Slam outings have all gone to a deciding set. At the 2016 Australian Open, where he will play his last match, every time he yells “C’mon!” I can feel the years roll back and I am a young boy once again, who hoped that he could be doing what Hewitt was doing for the rest of his life.
