Cruz Hewitt’s hopes of competing in the Australian Open are over after he was beaten in the first round of qualifying at Melbourne Park on Tuesday.
With famous parents Lleyton and Bec watching from the stands, 17-year-old Hewitt went down 6-3 6-3 in 76 minutes to American Michael Zheng at a packed ANZ Arena.
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It was the second year in succession that Hewitt had been knocked out in the first round of the Open qualifiers.
However multiple Aussies were successful in their first round matches including former doubles world No.1 Storm Hunter, Jason Kubler, James McCabe, Maddison Inglis and wildcard Elena Micic.
Plus in Adelaide, Australia’s women’s No.1 Maya Joint recorded a third win from three meetings against 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin.
The 19-year-old’s 7-6(3) 6-4 victory booked an all-Aussie second round battle with Ajla Tomljanovic, who took advantage of fifth seed Clara Tauson’s early retirement on Monday, 7-6(5) 0-0 (ret).
The winner is likely to face world No.8 Mirra Andreeva in the quarter-finals.
Elsewhere in Adelaide, Rinky Hijikata downed fellow Aussie Tristan Schooklate 6-4 6-4, while Kim Birrell enjoyed the same scoreline in her upset of world No.54 Anastasia Potapova.
Back in Melbourne, Hewitt paid the price for 37 unforced errors against the 21-year-old Zheng, who only made 14 in comparison.
Signs were ominous early, with Hewitt forced to save two break points in an opening game that took eight minutes to complete.
Games remained on serve until 3-3, with Zheng then grabbing the ascendancy, breaking Hewitt’s serve to secure the first set 6-3 in 38 minutes.
Zheng started the second set in similar fashion, jumping to a 2-0 lead before Hewitt broke his opponent’s serve for the first time in the match.
However, the world No.734 – who finished the match with six double faults – couldn’t maintain the rage, with Zheng breaking Hewitt’s serve in the next game.
The seesawing nature of the set continued until eighth game, where world No.174 Zheng again broke Hewitt’s before closing out the second set to advance to the second round of qualifiers.
“There’s not much more I could ask for – I’m super excited,” Zheng said.
“This is what you work for in these full stadiums. I still had a lot of fans cheering for me, but even if the fans were cheering against me, it’s still an unbelievable experience.
“He (Hewitt) retuned really well on the games that he broke me. He was doing a good job attacking my second serve … but I just kept calm and tried to take it one point at a time.”
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