Alex de Minaur will not be offended when he sees his mentor Lleyton Hewitt supporting his opponent on Friday morning.
That’s because his opponent at the Washington Open will be 17-year-old Cruz Hewitt, who this week tasted success at ATP Tour level for the first time, setting up an all-Australian blockbuster.
De Minaur, the defending champion, on Thursday won his first round match against Stefanos Tsitsipas to join Hewitt in the second round.
The No. 1 seed broke back to take the first set and rallied in the third to overcome the Greek former world number three 6-4 3-6 6-3.
Hewitt earlier defeated world No. 86 Marcos Giron 6-3 6-4 in the first round, capitalising on his incredible fortune of being handed a qualifying wildcard before he was gifted a spot in the Washington men’s singles main draw as a result of consecutive retirements.
De Minaur, 27, will be a challenge unlike anything Cruz has previously faced.
His dad Lleyton has been one of de Minaur’s closest mentors on and off the court.
Lleyton, who won the Washington event 22 years ago, has repeatedly spoken about the fondness and respect he has for de Minaur.
However, he will not be supporting “The Demon” on Friday.
“I would expect him to be in his son’s box, and rightfully so,“ de Minaur said.
“Lleyton has been an immense help for me in my career.”
Cruz will at least move into the top 400 on the ATP Tour rankings after his first round win – and a win over de Minaur would see his ranking skyrocket even higher.
Cruz this week became the youngest Aussie to win an ATP main draw match outside of Australia since his dad managed it aged 17 years and 174 days in New Haven in 1998.
It’s why a photo of the Hewitt family with de Minaur has been spreading across cyberspace in the past 48 hours.
The picture of Lleyton, Bec, Cruz and de Minaur from the 2018 John Newcombe Medal event shows how crazy it is that Cruz will be facing a player 10 years older than him.
The side by side photo of de Minaur and Cruz has been shared by the ATP Tour, the Washington Open’s official social channels, the Tennis Channel, Action Tennis News and leading tennis journalist Jose Morgado.
The tournament’s Instagram page shared a photo with a caption: “We’re not crying. You’re crying”.
The showdown was all set up when de Minaur was forced to dig deep against Tsitsipas.
His first round victory came despite a poor record against Tsitsipas, who had won 12 of their prior 13 encounters.
“It’s no secret my head-to-head isn’t the greatest against him. He’s gotten the better of me many, many times,” said De Minaur.
“I’m happy with how it went today… played the match on its own merits, and ultimately found a way in a tricky, tricky match.”
World number six De Minaur has steadily risen up the rankings in recent years and said many of his early losses to Tsitsipas had come when “I wasn’t probably the player that I was today.” De Minaur got off to a shaky start, surviving a break point in the fourth game, before handing Tsitsipas the sixth game with two consecutive double-faults.
But he fought back immediately with two breaks of his own, and then survived another break point in the 10th game to win the first set 6-4.
Tsitsipas broke first again in the second set and held on to force a deciding set.
But De Minaur took advantage of an unforced error by Tsitsipas in the third set’s fourth game and held firm for the win.
— with AFP