{"id":290776,"date":"2025-11-17T17:02:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290776\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T17:02:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T17:02:14","slug":"hewitt-thought-about-stunning-switch-from-tennis-to-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290776\/","title":{"rendered":"Hewitt thought about stunning switch from tennis to AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even after winning two grand slam titles, Lleyton Hewitt’s first sporting love tempted the tennis great to make a stunning career change.<\/p>\n

Hewitt has spoken about what happened in 2003 when he was “actually considering” an attempt to play AFL<\/p>\n

While Port Adelaide coach and family friend Mark Williams ultimately could not lure him from tennis, the idea gave Hewitt pause for thought.<\/p>\n

A famous Davis Cup win over Roger Federer that year convinced Hewitt to stay put. On Monday night, he was one of seven inductees into the Sport Australia Hall Of Fame.<\/p>\n

Hewitt was born into Australian Rules. His father and uncle had solid football careers and when Adelaide joined the AFL in 1991, he was a big fan.<\/p>\n

\"Lleyton<\/p>\n

Lleyton Hewitt and wife Bec at the Sport Australia Hall of Fame dinner where Hewitt was inducted. (Joel Carrett\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

“That was in my blood, that’s what I wanted to do as a young kid,” Hewitt said.<\/p>\n

But he also showed major tennis potential as a teenager. His parents convinced him to make the “bloody tough” decision to focus on the international sport..<\/p>\n

By 2003, he had been world No.1, as well as winning the US Open and Wimbledon in 2001-02.<\/p>\n

After his ’03 Wimbledon title defence did not make it past the first round, and he lost the No.1 ranking, Hewitt contemplated what might come next.<\/p>\n

\"Lleyton<\/p>\n

Lleyton Hewitt’s joy at his 2003 Davis Cup defeat of Roger Federer kept him playing tennis. (Julian Smith\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Williams said a few years ago that Hewitt contacted him about potentially switching sports, but the tennis star says the Power coach made the approach.<\/p>\n

There was talk of Hewitt playing a pre-season game and potentially joining Port as a rookie-listed player.<\/p>\n

Regardless of who was driving the idea, eventually it fizzled and Hewitt, a keen Adelaide supporter, did not have to consider joining the Crows’ fierce local-rivals.<\/p>\n

“I grew up absolutely hating the Power, the Port Adelaide Magpies,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Roger<\/p>\n

Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt met again in Australia at Davis Cup in 2011, with Federer winning. (Tracey Nearmy\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

“But at the time, I was actually considering it.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t love the contract and the money.<\/p>\n

“He (Williams) ended up giving me a few weeks to think about it.”<\/p>\n

The clincher was Hewitt rallying from from two sets down to beat Swiss great Federer in an epic ’03 Davis Cup semi-final. There would be no defection.<\/p>\n

“It was one of my greatest victories and I called Choco (Williams) and said ‘no’,” Hewitt said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even after winning two grand slam titles, Lleyton Hewitt’s first sporting love tempted the tennis great to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,6566,37660,40515,6082,167285,965,56320,85],"class_list":["post-290776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-davis-cup","tag-lleyton-hewitt","tag-mark-williams","tag-port-adelaide","tag-port-adelaide-magpies","tag-roger-federer","tag-sport-australia-hall-of-fame","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}