Joel Drucker, the guy who wrote this letter, is the author of "Jimmy Connors Saved My Life" and - I believe - a fairly respected tennis journalist. This open letter of his appeared in Tennis Week and, I gotta say, I find it incredibly condescending and unprofessional. Hewitt is nobody's media darling and I'm sure he is tough to deal with, but it's hard to take someone seriously as a professional when they're not acting like one themselves.

What's Lleyton's Problem?

[ July 12, 2005, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Gaga4Gaby ]

I have no idea what the beef is that Drucker may have against Hewitt, beyond what he says in the article. But this bit pretty much sums up Hewitt's deficiency I think Hewitt would have made the same claim if he had been playing an openly gay tennis player with an openly gay umpire. I don't know if the player's response would have been as subdued as Blake's, but I'll wager the feelings in the gay community would have been at least as strong as those in the African-American community.

I understand why people don't like Lleyton, the James Blake incident chief among reasons. But I feel the tone of the article is so condescending - all the "mates" and "Lleytons" are super unprofessional.

It seems personal, like rather than analyzing Hewitt and his relationship with the media - or, on a larger scale, Hewitt as the prime example of men's tennis and its public relations deficiencies - Drucker decided he didn't like Hewitt and his family and was gonna let the world know it. It's a big, "I'll show you"; a thinly disguised ego trip that smacks of some type of perceived vengence. I think it does far more to discredit Drucker than Hewitt, try though Joel might.

Yeah, I didn't even finish reading the open letter, too bitter and trite. I like Hewitt, I like his game, I like his on court antics. What he said to Blake he apologized for, under his terms and as I understand it there is no anomosity between them--let the issue go. Why does he owe any reporter a one-on-one interview. He does his post-match interviews, isn't that enough?

I used to like Tennis Week magazine, love all the draws given and the accurate rankings, and the magazine was a great quick reference for past matches. But editorially, the magazine irratated me, always harping on the USTA about finances, always ragging about something, I just let the subscription expire and never really looked back. And in the five years I subscribed they never put Monica on the cover but a gazillion of the Williams and Capriati and Roddick and then back Grand Slam covers, so no reason to collect and save those. And it wasn't even a weekly but swithced to like every six weeks. Enough.

Seems to me the writer had a column to fill. Maybe Hewitt doesn't care about being a media darling, dude. And a final thought: if you need Jimmy Connors to save your life, you are in very bad trouble.

Maybe this deserves a separate thread?

Hewitt anti-gay remark...



[ July 19, 2005, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]

JIP, we are already covering this in the DAvis Cup thread.

This seems more like a "Gays in Sports" thread than a "Tennis" one.

A Google search of \"Lleyton Hewitt poof\" suggests it's not just gay Australians and Gays in general who are getting a bad impression of Hewitt: The ChinaDaily.

Well, I started the thread before the poof comment happened, actually. We were discussing poof in the Davis Cup thread because it happened in the Davis Cup match against Coria. The original topic of this thread was just that silly letter that appeared in Tennis Week.

[ July 20, 2005, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: Gaga4Gaby ]

Anyway, I personally don't like Hewitt.

In a Reader's Digest Survey of the famous people most trusted by Australians Lleyton Hewitt ranked 73rd out of 100, though he was well ahead of the Prime Minister John Howard who's support of the War in Iraq is about as popular the war is in most European countries.Who do ya like mate? At least Ian Thorpe beats out Mel Gibson.