{"id":830144,"date":"2026-07-29T00:33:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T00:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830144\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T00:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T00:33:22","slug":"tennis-news-2026-cruz-hewitt-first-atp-tour-victory-washington-open-highlights-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/830144\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis news 2026: Cruz Hewitt first ATP Tour victory, Washington Open, highlights, video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cruz Hewitt\u2019s blossoming professional tennis<\/a> career has hit another milestone, having clinched a maiden victory on the ATP Tour<\/a> in his first match.<\/p>\n

Making his tour-level debut against American Marcos Giron at the Washington Open on Wednesday morning (AEST), Hewitt didn\u2019t let the occasion get the better of him to clinch the biggest victory of his career in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cruz Hewitt has won his first match on the ATP Tour in Washington DC.\u00a0ATP Tour<\/p>\n

And he celebrated by replicating dad Lleyton<\/a>\u2019s trademark \u201cC\u2019mon!\u201d scream and hand gesture. The victory will catapult the 17-year-old from outside the top-600 in men\u2019s rankings into the top-400.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really happy with how I competed today. I came out and started pretty well and I am thrilled to get through to the next round,\u201d he said after the match.<\/p>\n

Giron is currently No.80 in the world with a career-high of No.37. The American reached the third round of the Australian Open<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Hewitt said his dad had given only a simple instruction ahead of the match.<\/p>\n

\u201c(He told me) mainly to enjoy it because it was my first tour-level match, to take every point one-by-one, to enjoy the atmosphere and the crowd, and that\u2019s what I did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His reward for the victory could be a second round match up with compatriot and hitting partner Alex De Minaur<\/a>, who will play Stefanos Tsitsipas<\/a> later on Wednesday. De Minaur is the top seed in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Other big names in action in the US capital include American stars Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul, as well as Italian Lorenzo Musetti.<\/p>\n

Granted a wildcard into the qualifying event<\/a> for the ATP 500 event in Washington DC, Hewitt progressed into the main draw after both opponents withdrew, although he was leading both matches at the time.<\/p>\n

Against Du\u0161an Lajovi\u0107, Hewitt was 5-2 up in the first set when the Serb retired injured. Then against Zachary Svajda, Hewitt lost the first set but fought back to clinch the second in a tie-breaker, and was up in the third when Svajda also retired injured.<\/p>\n

For making the second round, Hewitt will pocket just under $52,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cruz Hewitt\u2019s blossoming professional tennis career has hit another milestone, having clinched a maiden victory on the ATP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":830145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-830144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830144","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=830144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}