Hewitt, Lleyton

Lleyton Hewitt, in full Lleyton Glynn Hewitt, (born February 24, 1981, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), Australian professional tennis player whose astonishing court speed, fierce determination, and unrelenting ground strokes allowed him to capture victories at both the U.S. Open (2001) and Wimbledon (2002).

Hewitt was born into an exceedingly athletic family; his father, uncle, and grandfather distinguished themselves as players in Australian rules football, and his mother was a physical education teacher who played netball. Hewitt played Australian rules football until he was 13, when he dedicated himself to tennis. He became the leading Australian junior tennis player in 1996. Two years later he secured his first professional singles title. By the end of 1999, he had advanced to number 22 in the world and had helped Australia to win the Davis Cup. He concluded 2000 ranked seventh in the world after having swept 61 of the 80 matches he contested that season, establishing himself as the first teenager since Pete Sampras in 1990 to garner four singles titles in a year.

In 2001 Hewitt was the most prolific winner on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) circuit, claiming 80 match victories and becoming the youngest man to have finished a year at number one since the official ATP world rankings were introduced in 1973. Hewitt defeated Sampras to win the 2001 U.S. Open, his first Grand Slam title. Ten months later Hewitt excelled on the grass courts at the All-England Club and ousted Argentina’s David Nalbandian to win the 2002 Wimbledon tournament. Hewitt failed to retain his U.S. Open title that year, however, losing to Andre Agassi in the semifinals. In 2003 he was a member of the Davis Cup-winning Australian team for a second time. Though he failed to capture any Grand Slam titles in the ensuing years, he did advance to the finals in both the 2004 U.S. Open and the 2005 Australian Open.

During his later career, Hewitt suffered from various injuries that limited his play. In 2016 he retired, but two years later he returned to compete in doubles events.