Hewitt, a Davis Cup winner who intends to repeat as captain

It goes for more. He seeks the double, the triple, in fact. At 42 years old, Lleyton Hewitt, the former world number one and two-time Grand Slam champion, wants to win the Davis Cup again. He has already done so as a player on two occasions, and now he intends to captain the side that reached the final in Malaga, after beating Finland 2-0 in the first semi-final.

And this Friday, the Australians have a ticket to Sunday’s grand final. Alexei Popyrin put his team in the lead by defeating Otto Virtanen 7-6 (5) and 6-2, then Alex de Minaur defeated Emil Ruusuvuori 6-4 and 6-3 to decide the series and qualify for the final in Malaga, in the final stage of the tournament in Spain, on Hard courts and indoors.

Australia, which qualified for the 2022 finals when it lost to Canada, is seeking its first title in 20 years. Sunday’s opponent comes from Saturday’s match between Novak Djokovic’s Serbia and Jannik Sinner’s Italy.

Australia, the historic champion and host of the legendary Davis Cup, has not won this famous cup since the 2003 edition. It is the second most winning country in this competition, and the most important in men’s team tennis, with 28 titles, behind only the United States. United, 32-time champion.

Hewitt participated with mixed results in the last two Australian coronations. In 2003, at home in Melbourne, they beat Spain 3-1 on grass. There, the plucky player, now captain of the Australian national team, beat Juan Carlos Ferrero, the winner of that year’s Roland Garros, on the first point, in a match that ended in five sets. Mark Philippoussis then fell to Carlos Moya, Todd Woodbridge and Wayne Arthurs won the doubles and Philippoussis defeated Ferrero. For this reason, he didn’t need to decide the series against Moya.

In the previous win, in 1999, in a 3-2 win away to France, in Nice, on clay and indoor, Hewitt was unable to contribute anything to the victory. Philippoussis defeated Sebastian Grosjean, then the 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon winner fell to Cédric Piolin. The duo of Woodbridge and Mark Woodford won and resolved the Philippoussis vs. Pioline storyline. With the final already decided, in a best-of-three rather than five-set duel, Hewitt succumbed to Grosjean.

Looking back, you have to go back to 1986 to find Australia’s previous Davis Cup success. That’s why Hewitt wants to achieve a feat that few can achieve: celebrating on the court as a tennis player and then doing so as a captain as well. The challenge is not easy but keep daydreaming about Malaga.