Lleyton Hewitt<\/a>\u2019s son.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s not his fault, it\u2019s not Lleyton\u2019s fault, it\u2019s just what it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s 17 years old. Let\u2019s see what happens in the next four years. It\u2019ll take him a little while. He\u2019s going to be spoken about. You\u2019re going to think he\u2019s a brat sometimes, you\u2019re going to think he\u2019s the best sometimes. That\u2019s just growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure he\u2019s good because deep down he\u2019s a good kid. So he\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rafter had no doubt that Hewitt would be handed a wildcard for his home grand slam and be on his way to stardom. He also fiercely dismissed the idea that Hewitt\u2019s opportunities are unearned.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll play the AO, absolutely. He\u2019s just proven that he can play. And we don\u2019t have any juniors coming through. And there\u2019s a very good chance he\u2019ll get a wildcard,\u201d Rafter admitted. <\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I don\u2019t know who\u2019s asking, but I would imagine\u2026 I don\u2019t even know who\u2019s coming through. Seriously, that\u2019s how detached I am. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can call him a \u2018nepo baby\u2019 or whatever you want, but he has to do it himself, and he\u2019s done it himself. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not nepo. He\u2019s doing it.\u201d <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Cruz Hewitt was runner-up in Wimbledon. \u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n
Rafter was blunt in his admission that he doesn\u2019t miss the professional tennis tour.<\/p>\n
Having largely detached himself from the sport\u2019s current pipeline, Rafter has instead shifted his focus to promote padel in Australia, including the Padel Invitational in August, set on the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House. <\/p>\n
Looking back, Rafter described the isolation of singles tennis as intimidating, saying he\u2019s deeply relieved to have escaped the era of constant scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s shocking – it\u2019s just a shocking bloody sport as it is. Stuck out there exposed,\u201d he reflected. <\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone asked me, \u2018Why\u2019d you do it?\u2019 I said, \u2018I have no idea why I did it.\u2019 I had the right temperament for it, obviously, but I don\u2019t know who has the right temperament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know what I was doing. I was just doing it because I loved it. And when I cried every weekend, cheating\u2026 playing five matches a day every weekend, and why you go through all this turmoil, then you back it up the next week and do it all again. <\/p>\n
\u201cIs that the definition of stupidity? Or is that the definition of resilience? <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Rafter has left the days of tennis behind for a new sport taking over the world. \u00a0Steven Markham<\/p>\n
\u201cI got no idea what it is.\u201d <\/p>\n
When asked about the intense level of pressure and surveillance that today\u2019s top players face on social media, Rafter joked and said he wouldn\u2019t last a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I wouldn\u2019t survive! I\u2019d be in jail,\u201d Rafter laughed. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo, we had so much fun. Me, a kid on tour – you signed a couple of autographs, you went out, you misbehaved and people looked at you and laughed. They said, \u2018what an idiot\u2019 and that was the end of the story. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow, you\u2019re documented, everything you do. What a world, I\u2019m so glad I\u2019m out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Padel Invitational will take place between August 15 – 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Pat Rafter is a man acquainted with pressure. Having famously held the world No.1 ranking for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-837749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n