MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Cruz Hewitt, the son of former world number one Lleyton, came up short in his bid to reach the Australian Open main draw on Tuesday when he was beaten 6-1 6-4 by Nikoloz Basilashvili in the first round of qualifying.
The 16-year-old echoed his watching father with cries of “C’mon!” after winning a couple of crucial points but was no match for the experienced Georgian, who was once ranked 16th in the world.
“Cruz showed up and played very well,” Basilashvili said on court.
“When I was 16, I would have been pooping my pants to have to come out on the Grand Slam court and play a match like this.”
Hewitt senior, now Australia’s Davis Cup captain, made the first of his 20 straight appearances at the Australian Open as a 15-year-old qualifier in 1997.
He went on to top the world rankings at the age of 20 and win Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
Bernard Tomic, one of a string of talents who have been touted as a potential successor to Hewitt as an Australian Grand Slam winner, also bowed out in the opening round of qualifying at Melbourne Park on Tuesday.
Now 32, Tomic plays most of his tennis on the Challenger circuit these days and his bid to return to the main draw at his home Grand Slam for the first time since 2022 lasted only the hour it took him to lose 6-3 6-1 to Czech Jozef Kovalik.
Tomic, who was once ranked as high as 17th in the world and made the quarter-finals of Wimbledon as a teenage qualifier in 2011, reached the fourth round of the Australian Open three times.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney in Sydney, editing by Michael Perry)
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