MELBOURNE — Cruz Hewitt, the son of former world No. 1 Lleyton, got here up brief in his bid to achieve the Australian Open major draw when he was crushed 6-1, 6-4 by Nikoloz Basilashvili within the first spherical of qualifying Tuesday.
The 16-year-old echoed his father, who was within the crowd, with cries of “C’mon!” after profitable a few essential factors however was no match for the skilled Basilashvili, who was as soon as ranked sixteenth on the earth.
“Cruz confirmed up and performed very properly,” Basilashvili stated on courtroom. “After I was 16, I might have been pooping my pants to have to come back out on the Grand Slam courtroom and play a match like this.”
The elder Hewitt, now Australia’s Davis Cup captain, made the primary of his 20 straight Australian Open appearances as a 15-year-old qualifier in 1997.
He went on to achieve the highest of the world rankings at age 20 and gained Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon and the US Open.
Bernard Tomic, certainly one of a string of skills who’ve been touted as a possible successor to Hewitt as an Australian Grand Slam winner, additionally bowed out within the opening spherical of qualifying at Melbourne Park on Tuesday.
Now 32, Tomic performs most of his tennis on the Challenger circuit. His bid to return to the primary draw at his dwelling Grand Slam for the primary time since 2022 lasted solely the hour it took him to lose 6-3, 6-1 to Jozef Kovalik.
Tomic, who was as soon as ranked as excessive as seventeenth on the earth and made the quarterfinals of Wimbledon as a teenage qualifier in 2011, reached the fourth spherical of the Australian Open 3 times.
Reuters contributed to this report.