Pickleball Is Expanding. Tennis Is Mad | NYT

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From New York to Hawaii, weekend athletes and government officials are taking part in a battle that goes beyond the fight for court space.

Charlie Dulik and Michael Nicholas, tennis enthusiasts in Brooklyn, have lately been consumed by another racquet sport: pickleball.

They have no interest in joining those who have taken up the game in recent years. Rather, they have been following pickleball’s increasing popularity with a mixture of disbelief and outrage.

Mr. Dulik, a tenant organizer, and Mr. Nicholas, an urban planner, are the founders of Club Leftist Tennis, a Substack newsletter that covers their favorite sport through a progressive lens. In a recently published manifesto, “Against Pickleball,” they called for tennis players to “oppose the gangrenous spread of pickleball at every turn.”

Mr. Dulik, 27, and Mr. Nicholas, 28, adopted a semisatirical tone in their essay. But they are serious about their disdain for pickleball, a combination of badminton, Ping-Pong and tennis played with a small paddle and a hard plastic ball. Indeed, the two are participants in a cultural battle now playing out from New York to Hawaii, as pickleball players seek places to play and tennis players defend their ground.

When officials in Asheville, N.C., submitted plans to convert the three tennis courts in Murphy-Oakley Park into eight pickleball courts, tennis players rebelled. In Arizona, there was so much bad blood between the two factions that a law firm provided guidance to homeowners’ associations on how to avoid lawsuits. Tennis players in Hawaii complained that the organizers of the Pacific Rim Pickleball Cup had created a potential safety hazard on the courts because of the “gooey adhesive” they had left behind after they laid out pickleball lines with yellow tape.

When pickleball players in Exeter, N.H., petitioned to convert three of the town’s eight public tennis courts, tensions flared at a town meeting in what one resident called “The Great Tennis v. Pickleball War of 2022.” Martina Navratilova, the winner of 59 Grand Slam tennis titles, weighed in on the kerfuffle in Exeter: “I say if pickleball is that popular let them build their own courts,” she said on Twitter.

Tennis advocates have expressed irritation at the spate of reports chronicling the sport’s rise. “Is the Next Great Pastime Pickleball?” New York magazine asked, shortly before an NPR article called it “America’s fastest-growing sport.” The New Yorker weighed in with a story titled “Can Pickleball Save America?”, and The New York Times asked in a headline: “Why Is Pickleball So Popular?”

Mr. Dulik bemoaned the media reception. “It’s always the exact same phrases: ‘Pickleball is much more accessible and fun than tennis’; ‘Pickleball is the fastest growing sport,’” he said. “I’m cringing at being sold something so blatantly.”

Read more —->

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/style/pickleball-tennis-courts.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Roger Federer Talks About Life After Tennis | WSJ

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Roger Federer has yet to play pickleball.

“Never,” he said. “Never held the racket in my hand. You don’t have that stuff in Switzerland.”

As for tennis, the gentleman legend has closed the book. I met Federer Saturday in a small office on the ground level of the O2 Arena, where, the prior night, he’d played the final match of his career, a doubles loss alongside his rival turned pal, Rafael Nadal. Federer was still dressed in his blue Team Europe sweatsuit, but his competitive career was officially over, at age 41.

What did he feel when he woke up in the morning?

“A sense of happiness,” Federer said.

That post-match ceremony had been a heart-tugging weeper. By now you’ve surely seen the images: Federer in tears, sobbing at the microphone and alongside Laver Cup teammates and competitors, especially Nadal, who appeared overcome.

Nadal’s tearful reaction “hit deep,” Federer said. So had emotional responses and words from Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.

“I’m happy I’m the first to go,” Federer said. “I know how I would have felt if Rafa had gone first, or Novak, or Andy. It would not be the same. Something would be missing.”

Federer’s retirement had been a closely-kept secret since late summer. A knee scan after Wimbledon proved to be concerning, and Federer faced a choice: yet another surgery and rehab, or moving on to his next chapter.

There was heartbreak, but he could get his mind around the latter. He’d never wanted to play into his mid-40s, a tennis Tom Brady. Time off recovering from prior injuries had foreshadowed his athletic afterlife.

“I’d had a glimpse,” Federer said, “and it wasn’t scary at all.”

Roger Federer is finally hanging up his racket after a record-breaking career. Follow the 20-time Grand Slam champion’s career in photos as he transitions from fiery teenager to elder statesman of tennis.Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

He will remain busy. Federer has a range of business interests, a charitable foundation and of course, a family—he and his wife, Mirka, have two sets of twins, 13-year-old girls, Myla and Charlene, and 8-year-old boys, Lenny and Leo. Mornings in the Federer home in Switzerland remain “lively,” he said. “It’s always a question of how loud can the kiddies be from the beginning?”

As for tennis, he emphasized he did not want to become a “ghost.” Federer had spoken poignantly earlier in the week about Swedish idol Bjorn Borg’s estrangement from the sport after his retirement. The silver-maned Borg is now a Laver Cup captain, prominently returned, mixing it up once more. Federer is eager to maintain his own connection.

Could tennis ask for a better statesman? After Federer announced his retirement plan on Sept. 15, tributes poured in, praising Federer for his success, style and mien. He was tennis’s James Bond. Its Baryshnikov. Depending on whom you talked to—and tennis nuts will debate it until the end of time—he has a case as its GOAT, a virtuoso expression of accomplishment and aesthetic.

At the Laver Cup, he was surrounded by idols like Rocket Rod, now 84, and Stefan Edberg, as well as veterans who’d played him at his peak. Then there were the up-and-comers who’d worshiped him since they were youngsters—talents like the Americans Frances Tiafoe and Jack Sock, who would narrowly beat “Fedal” in a spirited match that went to a tiebreak decider.

Federer won 20 major titles, but when the pros talk, they talk about the way he won them—the unruffled manner in which Federer carried himself on and off the court.

“No one is bigger than the sport itself,” said Borg, “but what he did for the sport around the world? It’s amazing.”

He’s left an indelible mark. Would he consider coaching? Federer said there was no way he’d leave his family to go right back out on the road full-time. But he liked the idea of players visiting him for mini-sessions, like he did with Aussie coach Tony Roche in Sydney, tinkering with his game in Roche’s backyard court.

“I’d be open to something like that, especially with young players,” he said.

As for television commentating, he was curious, though he’s explored no formal plan. Networks would surely leap at the prospect of Fed in the booth, but there was a question: Could the sport’s most courteous diplomat be critical of his contemporaries?

“The point is to say how it is, and if it’s critical, it’s critical, but it isn’t personal,” Federer said. He added: “I’m not here to destroy players, I’m here to promote the game and make it better.”

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Roger Federer to retire at Laver Cup | Tennis,com

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A look back at just some of what has made this Swiss player so revered to so many.

Federer’s genius began with the way he carried his body, from stance to movement. Like a ballerina, Federer appeared to glide more than trod, arriving at the point of contact with superb posture and balance. Such discipline and elegance yielded a spectrum of shot possibilities Federer deployed to befuddle opponents, delight spectators and even please himself. Speeds and spins, angles and power: all of it was at Federer’s command. He was as complete a player as tennis has ever seen.

Notably, Federer’s victims rarely felt bludgeoned. They were dissected, methodically and deftly shredded by everything from his pinpoint serve to whip-like forehand to a backhand he often sliced wickedly short—and then drove deep. No one in tennis history has possessed as many different point-winning combinations as Federer. That variety, and the smoothness with which it was executed, was a major factor for his popularity.

As the arc of Federer’s career shows, all of this genius didn’t instantly reveal itself. Over the course of more than 20 years, his game evolved, with subtle but significant shifts that allowed him to stay at least one step ahead of the bulk of his contemporaries.

Federer's finest work came at Wimbledon—not just in his eight title runs, but during his breakout victory in 2001 over idol Pete Sampras.

Federer’s finest work came at Wimbledon—not just in his eight title runs, but during his breakout victory in 2001 over idol Pete Sampras.

© Getty Images

read article. —> https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/roger-federer-will-retire-laver-cup-2022

 

TSNSW News: Entries for State Seniors Championships Close 20 Sept

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A reminder that entries close for our State Championships ITF S700 on September 20 at 8pm. 

Enter Online at www.itftennis.com/ipin andwww.92computing.com.au/tsnswentry.htm.

Full details can be found by tapping the download button against the tournament on our website tsnsw.com.au. 

There will also be some combined doubles events on the Sunday or Monday. Please register for those with the Tournament Director, Arthur Olsen on 0400 525 591 or enter at the tournament desk on the Friday/Saturday of the tournament.

Sadly, Noel Fraser, the President of TSNSW from 2002 to 2008 passed away recently, on September 14. Noel had been suffering from Prostate Cancer for several years and unfortunately the cancer had spread throughout his body. He had been hospitalised in the Muswellbrook Calvary Retirement Village for some time and passed away with Val Angel his long time partner at his side. Some members would know Noel from the tournament in Muswellbrook which he ran in conjunction with Val, and in his healthier years was a regular at most of the country tournaments and captained a team at the Aust teams event every year. His funeral is at St Marks Church, Aberdeen at 2pm this Wednesday

How Ajla Tomljanovic Faced Down Serena Williams and 24,000 Others

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When Ajla Tomljanovic was a little girl, she asked her father about a prized photograph of him holding a big trophy on his head. Ratko Tomljanovic was a great professional handball player, winning two European Championships for Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and was the captain of the Croatian national team; before that, he was a member of the Yugoslavian team.

His daughter wanted to know where that shiny trophy was, because she had never seen it in their home. Ratko Tomljanovic explained that it had been a team award, and that he did not get to keep it. Unimpressed, Ajla told him that she would not play handball.

“I want the trophy just for myself,” she said.

So Ajla Tomljanovic chose tennis, and she is still striving for that big trophy, for a professional championship. She has shown the talent for it, though her nerves have betrayed her at times — what she calls “the bad Ajla.”

Credit…Corey Sipkin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

But on Friday night, Tomljanovic, who is ranked 46th, demonstrated to herself and the world that she had the mettle and the shotmaking ability to win a trophy of her own. If she wins four more matches in the coming week, it will be one of the most coveted in sports.

That night, Tomljanovic beat the six-time U.S. Open champion Serena Williams, 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-1, in front of a raucous, partisan crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York to advance to the fourth round of the U.S. Open for the first time.

“I feel like I belong here now,” she said.

That was not necessarily what she was thinking in the moments before she took the court.

Tomljanovic was nervous, and for good reason. Williams was her idol, and Tomljanovic had never played her before. She had never played in Ashe. In fact, she had never even practiced on that court. She had asked tournament organizers if they could find a time for her to hit some balls in the largest tennis stadium in the world at least once, but nothing was available.

Then there was the matter of her playing the role of villain, of facing down nearly 24,000 fans, virtually all of them screaming for Williams to win, and millions more watching on television. It would make anyone a tad nervous.

Tomljanovic confided the anxiety to her father, who was happy that his daughter admitted to the nerves. Better than hiding them, he thought. Ratko Tomljanovic also knew about playing in hostile environments, especially in Europe, where handball is intensely popular and the stakes are high. He tried to calm Ajla by evoking the almost comical role of the hard-bitten veteran of scrappy handball matches — the kind of yarn he had spun to her and his other daughter, Hana, many times before.

“Don’t tell me you are afraid of the crowd,” he told Ajla. “I played in some terrible places with 5,000 people booing and spitting, and one time the crowd came on the floor and there was a big fight. Don’t tell me it’s hard because some guy in the 35th row is yelling at you.”

It was not exactly Mickey yelling at Rocky. It was a speech designed to lighten the mood, and it worked. Ajla laughed. “She doesn’t care about what I did, at all,” Ratko said, chuckling.

But then he brought out another motivational tool. He mentioned one of his favorite movies, “For Love of the Game,” in which a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, played by Kevin Costner, reflects on his life and career in the midst of a perfect game.

“But she didn’t know the movie, so I had to explain it to her,” he said. “I told her, ‘You have to be Kevin Costner today.’”

In the film, he told her, the pitcher focuses explicitly on the catcher’s glove and ignores everything else in the stadium. Ajla understood, and she followed the advice with her own unique resolve.

She blocked out all the noise, the roars for Williams, the indecorous cheers when Tomljanovic missed a serve, all the celebrities in the stands, the video tributes to Williams and her own childhood adulation for Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion standing across the net and playing as well as she had in years. But Tomljanovic was better.

“From the first moment I walked on court, I didn’t really look around much,” she said. “I was completely in my own little bubble.”

Read more –>

David Waldstein, NY Times

Which court do you want to play on this weekend?

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17 Spectacular Tennis Courts Around the World

As the U.S. Open gets underway, AD takes a look at the very grounds that host this centuries-old sport, from cliffside clay to sky-high lawns.

One doesn’t have to be Roger Federer to appreciate some of the world’s best tennis courts. With exquisite design and picturesque surroundings, you can perfect your strokes on some of the world’s most unique courts, located in places ranging from the Miami skyline to high over New York City.

Designing tennis courts—or any sport facility, for that matter—has both a structured simplicity and an artistic challenge. In many ways, courts are all the same: They measure 78 feet long and 36 feet wide, they’re ideally oriented from the north to the south, and all are marked with the same baselines, service boxes, and cut by the same three-foot net. But with so many predetermined elements, designing something unique presents a difficult but satisfying opportunity when carried out correctly.

With the U.S. Open gearing up to take center court, AD looks at some of the most breathtaking spots to go game-set-match around the world.

La Quinta Resort (Palm Springs)

The Center Court at La Quinta Resort in California offers unique views of towering palms and rugged rock formations. With excellent weather and breathtaking surroundings, it’s no surprise that professionals like Maria Sharapova and Novak Djokovic have practiced here.

Image may contain Sport Sports Tennis Court Human Person Electrical Device and Solar Panels

Click here for rest

Hadley Keller, Megan Johnson, and Katherine McLaughlin

Empire, War, Tennis and Me | Book

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Empire, War, Tennis and Me
Peter Doherty
In this personal yet unsentimental memoir, Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty unearths the revealing and unique history of tennis and its ties to culture and nationalism.
For those who look, and think deeply, new connections emerge. Peter Doherty, one of the world’s foremost authorities on immunology, recipient of the Nobel Prize for medicine, and an active and respected commentator on public health, reflects in this book on empire, war and tennis.
Doherty identifies the origins of modern tennis within its imperial context, relating seemingly unlikely connections between the sport, its players and national militaries. He traces the fate of tennis-and its players-as a nascent force for internationalism and cultural tolerance within the context of World War II. And he personalises this account through an unsentimental but revealing depiction of his tennis-loving Queenslander uncles, at war and in captivity in the Pacific.
As Doherty shows, tennis and war have threaded their way through the lives of many people since the nineteenth century, in a way intriguingly unique to this sport. This is part of Peter’s story. And, as we come to realise, it is also part of the story of our world.

When you have covid, here’s how you know you are no longer contagious | Washington Post

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You’ve got covid-19. When can you exit isolation? If you do resume activities outside your home, can you be sure you’re no longer contagious? It’s complicated. Be forewarned:
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are nuanced but a little confusing. Those guidelines are under review and may change.
Several infectious-disease experts said they believe patients with covid should have a negative antigen test — which gives results within minutes — before exiting isolation. The CDC currently leaves that as an option and does not explicitly recommend it.
The important thing to consider, experts say, is that every person and every case of covid is unique. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how sick a person will get or how long a person remains infectious. The guidelines offer a general framework, but patients should take into account their different circumstances, priorities and resources to assess risk.

How long should I isolate if I have covid?

The coronavirus has the tricky feature of being transmissible even before the infected person has symptoms. In general, the peak period of virus shedding starts about a day or two before symptoms appear and continues two or three days after. Even though a person is less likely to transmit the virus later in the course of illness, it’s still possible. Research shows that people continue to shed virus that can be cultured in a laboratory — a good test of the potential to pass along the virus — for about eight days on average after testing positive. Experts say it is very unlikely to pass along the virus after 10 days even if a person still is testing positive.
The CDC calls for patients to isolate for at least five days. On Day 6, you can end isolation as long as your symptoms have improved and you have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medicine. The CDC has a calculator on its isolation and quarantine webpage to help people figure this out.
A potentially confusing point: Day 1 of your isolation, according to the CDC, is the day after you start feeling symptoms or test positive. (So, if you have a sore throat on Monday afternoon, that is Day 0 and Tuesday is Day 1.)
Even if you test negative, wear a well-fitting mask through Day 10 if you must be around others at home or in public. Don’t travel. If you decide to take a rapid at-home test several days into your infection, the best approach is to use it toward the end of the five-day period, the CDC says. If it is positive after the five-day isolation period, you should continue to isolate for a full 10 days, according to the agency guidelines.

Wait. Shouldn’t I test negative on a rapid test before leaving isolation?

The CDC guidance on this is confusing. It does not explicitly recommend that you have a negative test to end isolation.
But many experts think rapid at-home tests, also known as antigen tests, should be used to exit isolation. That’s what happened with President Biden, who tested negative twice before leaving isolation. (Biden, who was taking the antiviral Paxlovid, experienced a “rebound” infection, testing positive Saturday, and went back into isolation.)
Also, experts point out that rapid tests are more readily available than last December, when the CDC released this guidance. [Biden’s covid case highlights confusing CDC guidance on ending isolation] Given that a substantial portion of people do have a rapid positive test after five days, I think an updated recommendation should include people having a negative rapid test before coming out of isolation for covid,” Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said in an email. He was the Biden administration’s senior adviser on testing from December until April.
A negative antigen test is fairly reassuring that you are not able to transmit infection to other people anymore,” said Amy Barczak, an infectious-diseases expert at Massachusetts General Hospital who has researched how long patients with covid can shed virus. In a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, she and colleagues found that, on average, people infected with the omicron variant of the virus can shed virus that can be grown in a lab for eight days. [‘Rebound’ coronavirus cases: What to know after Biden tests positive again] Should I repeat the rapid test if it is negative? Barczak says that for healthy people, if you test negative on a rapid antigen test on or after Day 5, “you are unlikely to be contagious to other people.”
For people with special concerns about passing along the virus, an extra test is not a bad idea. In symptomatic people, clinicians sometimes recommend a second rapid test to be sure. Biden, for example, tested negative last Tuesday evening, and again Wednesday morning, before leaving isolation.
Michael Mina, a former Harvard University infectious-disease epidemiologist and immunologist who is an expert on rapid tests, said two tests 24 hours apart might provide extra security, like a double lock on your door. If people have access to tests, then “two tests in a row is just better form, better protection, than one negative test.

When should you take a PCR test vs. a rapid at-home test?

A PCR test, a type of molecular test, looks for the virus’s genetic material. The tests can detect even the tiniest amounts of virus, before you have enough in your body to spread it to other people. They are more useful early on as a confirmatory test to see if you are sick with covid but are not useful to determine whether you are infectious to others, said Albert Ko, an epidemiologist and infectious-diseases physician at Yale University. If you develop covid-like symptoms, the CDC recommends that you get tested immediately. A negative PCR test in a symptomatic person means it’s highly unlikely you have covid. If you had close contact with someone with covid and then tested negative with a rapid test, you might want to get further assurance that you aren’t infected. In that case, you can take a PCR test, Ko said. Most PCR tests must be analyzed by a lab, and results can take a few days.
A PCR test after you’ve been sick is not really practical, because “for the average healthy person, the PCR test is going to stay positive for longer than they’re actually infectious,” Barczak said.
Rapid antigen tests are more practical than PCR tests for determining quickly whether you are capable of transmitting the virus. If you’re symptomatic, an antigen test will be more reliable, because your body is putting out a lot more virus to detect. But even without symptoms, people can test positive on a rapid antigen test and be a risk to others. Most at-home tests provide results in 10 to 20 minutes using samples collected with a nasal swab.
Because rapid tests provide results quickly and are essentially contagiousness tests, people should use them — even if they feel fine and have no symptoms — right before they plan to attend indoor events or large gatherings, especially if they expect to be around people more vulnerable to covid, including those with weak immune systems or others at higher risk of getting infected.

2022 Forster Seniors Tennis Results

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NCAA champion Ben Shelton

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ATLANTA — The phrase “future of American men’s tennis” mostly inspires groans these days, as 74 Grand Slams have come and gone since Andy Roddick lifted the U.S. Open trophy in 2003.

Invariably, the burden of that drought falls on the American youngsters who quickly rise up the rankings, start making an impact on the ATP Tour and then run into the Grand Slam wall that Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have erected over the last two decades.

So let’s not saddle Ben Shelton, just 19, with that kind of albatross. But we can say this: The rising University of Florida junior, who won the NCAA singles title in May, is very, very good. And he’s on the precipice of a career-defining summer that may well put him on a very different trajectory from the one that seemed laid out for him just a few weeks ago.

Shelton, whose father Bryan is a former top-100 player and now is the head coach at Florida, played his first ATP-level match Tuesday, at the Atlanta Open. He won it in pretty straightforward fashion, beating veteran pro Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-2, 7-5 and letting out a big scream as he put away an overhead on match point.

“It’s really special,” said Shelton, who was just a few blocks from the courts of his childhood at Georgia Tech, where his father coached until 2012.

Ben Shelton already has received a wildcard entry to the U.S. Open, the season's final Grand Slam.

But with each tournament he’s played, the bigger story is that Shelton himself might be special, and his performance could very well force some decisions about his future much faster than anticipated.

As of now, Shelton is slated to return to Florida in the fall. But after performing well in several Challenger-level events and impressively winning his first round here, he’s on a fast track to the top 200 in the world rankings. Brad Gilbert, the longtime pro player, coach and ESPN analyst, wrote on Twitter that Shelton will be “top 50 for sure.” And the U.S. Open already has granted him a wildcard into the main draw, which would be a guaranteed $75,000 in first-round prize money — if he turns pro.

“That’ll definitely be a talk later in the summer with my parents and my team and we’ll make a decision based on where my development is and what’s going to be best for me not just on the court but off the court as well,” Shelton said. “There’s no real results or rankings that are going to sway my decision in a big way.”

There’s plenty, of course, that could bring Shelton back to college. It’s a comfortable place for him, he wants to complete his finance degree and it’s certainly a big deal to play for his father on one of the most successful teams in the country.

But as he goes through the process this summer, it certainly seems possible Shelton and those around him will conclude that he’s just too good to go back to school.

“I’m just a college guy out here having fun,” he said. “I don’t put too much stress on my matches. I’m focused and want to do the best I can, but it’s not do-or-die for me out here.”

Shelton will get a better sense of where he stands on Thursday when he faces No. 25-ranked John Isner, who has won the Atlanta event six times. After going 11-4 against pros ranked mostly in the 150-300 range, this will be Shelton’s first opportunity to see how he stacks up against a top-100 player.

But regardless of how it goes against Isner — and certainly it’s a major step up in class for someone who hasn’t turned pro yet — it’s Shelton’s explosive game at 6-foot-3 that is drawing as much attention as the results.

With a big lefty serve that averaged 126 mph against Ramanathan and the ability to get a massive kick on his first and second serve, Shelton already has a legitimate weapon that can win him matches. But he also appears to be very solid off both of his groundstrokes and is very comfortable coming into the net to finish points behind both his power and slice. Shelton won 15 of 22 points when he came in for a volley or overhead.

“I love to get to net, be able to use some of my hand skills, athletic skills and going up to get the ball (to put away overheads) is one of my favorite things to do,” Shelton said. “I could have done a better job today incorporating my serve and volley and getting to net quicker in points but I think that’s a big part of my game and a big part of my development.”

Only the hardest of hardcore tennis fans would have been watching Shelton on a Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta, but it was easy to see why he’s been a dominant college player, going 37-5 in singles last season. It was also a huge advertisement for other tournaments this summer and fall to offer him a wildcard entry, as Atlanta did. Every tournament wants to boast that it helped launch a great career.

It’s far too early to project that Tuesday’s match was the debut of the next great American champion, but at the very least Shelton appears poised for an interesting and successful pro career. Shelton may have some things pulling him back to college for another year, but if he keeps playing like he has the last several weeks, it will be difficult to turn down the opportunities he’s creating for himself right now.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Dan Wolken

Hewitt Inducted Into Hall Of Fame

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It has been an emotional weekend for Lleyton Hewitt. Surrounded by family and friends in Newport, the Australian has relived his growth from a boy with a dream in Adelaide to one of tennis’ greatest champions in recent memory. On Saturday evening, that culminated in his induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

“The Hall of Fame seemed like something that was so far away from me ever being part of,” Hewitt said during the induction ceremony. “It was never something I ever thought about as a player, and it was always, I thought, for the people that were my idols growing up and the absolute legends of the sport.”

In a stirring induction speech, the 41-year-old took fans from around the world through his journey to the podium in Rhode Island. When Hewitt was a boy, his favourite sport was AFL football, which was played by members of his family, including his father, Glynn Hewitt.

But following a period of research, Hewitt’s parents found a tennis coach for their son in Peter Smith, who had a weekly slot available at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. “Rusty” never looked back.

One of the most important meetings of his life came as a teen, when he was introduced to Australian legend John Newcombe at his camp in Texas. Hewitt asked to interview Newcombe for a school project.

“The biggest thing he told me was about the famous Kipling poem ‘If’, and especially about the famous two lines that are written above the walkway out on Centre Court at Wimbledon,” Hewitt said. “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.”

No matter the hurdle Hewitt faced or the high he celebrated, the Australian gave his all. Regardless of the challenge, he tried his best to meet and exceed it.

Hewitt became the youngest No. 1 in Pepperstone ATP Rankings history at age 20 in 2001. The gritty right-hander captured two major singles titles, two year-end No. 1 finishes, two Nitto ATP Finals trophies and led Australia to two Davis Cup titles.

Before Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic ascended to the top of the sport, Hewitt held top spot for 80 weeks, good for 10th-most in history. Even when those stars made their mark, “Rusty” scratched and clawed, proving he would never back down.

“I feel fortunate that I was able to play across different generations,” Hewitt said. “I was able to be on the same court as my heroes that I looked up to, like Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, and then go on and compete against three of the greatest tennis players our sport has ever seen in Roger Federer, Rafael Nadaland Novak Djokovic.”

Hewitt was introduced by Australian legends Newcombe and Tony Roche, the latter of whom flew across the world to join his mentee for a special weekend.

“The first meeting I had with Lleyton was at a charity event in Adelaide,” Roche said. “He must have been 12 or 13. I was even impressed with his game at that early age. I was more impressed with his mullet haircut really. All the Adelaide kids seemed to have these great mullet haircuts. But Lleyton, you could tell, was going to be something special.”

Source: ATP