Cruz Hewitt at centre of huge Australian Open development amid bid to emulate father Lleyton
Tennis Australia is considering handing Hewitt a wildcard for the Australian Open qualifying tournament.
Cruz Hewitt could make his first-ever Australian Open main draw appearance in January with Tennis Australia reportedly considering handing him a wildcard to the Melbourne Park qualifying. The only son of former World No.1 and two-time major winner Lleyton Hewitt, Cruz, had his first significant exposure to Melbourne Park earlier this year where he received a wildcard for the Australian Open junior boys' event.
He went down 6-2, 6-3 to sixth seed Alexander Razeghi in front of a packed and raucous crowd. But since then he has continued to improve and after another year on the junior circuit, going 30-10 this calendar year, tournament organisers are considering handing him a wild card for qualifying for the main draw.
Cruz is currently ranked World No.106 on the junior circuit, but that was as high as No.99 in October. He won two ITF junior titles in 2024 and claimed his first professional win in August. But that is a misleading ranking given the fact the majority of players ranked ahead of him are older.
Cruz is 15th among players born in 2008. Cruz, who turns 16 on Wednesday, has made huge strides this year and The Age reports Tennis Australia is weighing up handing him a wildcard for Australian Open qualifying. If he is given the wildcard it would mean the 16-year-old would need to win three matches against ATP-level opposition to make the main draw.
The move to hand him a wildcard wouldn't be out of step with previous years either, with this year several Aussie men and women given qualifying wildcards, including then-17-year-old Hayden Jones - currently the nation’s top-ranked junior. It would also see Cruz given a chance to emulate his father, who famously made his debut in the main draw of the Australian Open, a month before he turned 16.
But even if he doesn't get the wildcard and fails to make the main draw, Hewitt is still eligible to play the Australian Open boys' singles for another two years. And excitingly for Aussie tennis fans, he continues to grow in line with his famous father.
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After turning 16 on Wednesday, Cruz is now the same age his father was when he famously won his home-town Adelaide International – as a wildcard entrant ranked in the 500s in 1998. And the spotlight on Hewitt junior and his abilities has been present since he could walk and has only intensified since he has been seen hanging around the Davis Cup squad and hitting balls with Aussie No.1 Alex de Minaur.
However, even the most optimistic fans know he is unlikely to achieve what his father did at such a young age. While two-time grand slam winner Hewitt burst onto professional tennis and raced to become the then youngest World No.1 at 20, the sport has greatly evolved since then and the competition has gone up tenfold.
Since then there has been the era of the big three, the period when Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal won nearly every men’s tennis major. Many titles were won by those champions while they were in their 30s and since then young guns such as Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Casper Ruud have emerged, meaning Cruz has a tall task ahead of him.
And Hewitt senior says Cruz has just got to make the most of his tennis journey and soak up everything that goes with it. “They (comparisons) have already been there since he picked up a racquet,” Lleyton said. “He’s got to enjoy it as much as possible and make it fun. He’s doing great so far. It’s good that he gets to hang out with a lot of his idols as well – guys like Alex de Minaur, who he can look up to and get to hit with. It’s pretty special.
"It's hard to know how he'll end up. But he's a good shot-maker. He's got a little bit more firepower than probably I did, but, yeah, it's a long journey, absolutely."
