Any player feeling overwhelmed by pressure during Wimbledon fortnight ought to consider how it feels to be thrust on to the grass courts as the son of a champion.
While the rest of the competitors in the boys’ singles could plot the next stage along their career path in blissful anonymity, their entourages nurturing and readying them for a breakthrough in an imagined future, 16-year-old Cruz Hewitt enjoyed the blessing and endured the curse of enough prying eyes to have filled one of the show courts.
Cruz Hewitt during his loss to Finland’s Oskari Paldanius at Wimbledon.Credit: Getty Images
In the shadow of the arena where Lleyton Hewitt won a career-defining Wimbledon title 23 years ago, his son’s first attempt to join his father on the honours board ended in the second round, losing 6-3, 6-0 to Finnish 11th seed Oskari Paldanius.
One imagines more was learnt by playing for just under an hour with such expectation, and amid such attention from intrigued passers-by, than any of his previous junior events.
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The cramped court five attracted sports fans and celebrity hunters in equal measure as the famous parents of Hewitt jnr (his mother Bec is an actress and household name in Australia) took their seats on the quaint park benches, the 2002 champion’s presence guaranteeing the kind of wisdom and insight most competitors would need huge funding to afford.
The typically feisty Australian contingent was eager to get behind the teenager, the noise whenever he threatened to make the first set competitive a stark contrast to the isolated hand claps for the impressive Paldanius.
Alas, this was literally the boy versus the man as the physically daunting Finn left the Australian clinging for a semblance of hope from the moment he broke serve in the second game.
In truth, it was like watching two boxers in different weight divisions, the 18-month age gap decisive with Paldanius, who dashed through the second set, so athletically developed he would not have looked out of place in the men’s draw.
