Lleyton Nation
Shortly after Lleyton Hewitt hog-tied Andy Roddick in four sets to come within one match of becoming the first Australian man since Mark Edmonson in 1976 to win his national championships, I ambled over to the men’s locker room.
The hallway, with its overhead fluorescent lighting, shiny grey-and-white-flecked tile and pale green cinderblock walls reminded me of a hospital. It was anything but quiet, though, as Hewitt’s camp followers were milling about, high-fiving, backslapping, or holding cell phones to one ear with a finger in the other. Hewitt’s new girlfriend, a petite blond Australian actress, Rebecca Cartwright, was talking to her agent.
Hewitt’s own manager, Tom Ross, was doing what he does best, or at least most passionately: trying to convince anyone within earshot that his combative client is not really a blight on the game, but an asset to it. You can go around and around with Tom on this and it’s quite pointless, because Lleyton is both—just like Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe.
It’s been a hectic two weeks for the bantam rooster of tennis. Juan Ignacio Chela spat at him. David Nalbandian exchanged heated words with him. A lot of guys in the locker room are weary of his endless fist pumps, the plaintive cries of, “C’mawwwn!” Then there’s the relentlessly bland jargon: “I really stepped it up tonight,” and “I’m taking it one match at a time.”
Mostly, Hewitt is just annoying. It’s admittedly a strange label to slap on the youngest man ever to hold the world No. 1 ranking, the smallest great player of this (and almost any other) era, and a national icon in the making. Clearly, Hewitt has the heart of a lion and the discipline of monk. But so what? When you’re driving a car with a squeaky fan belt, you’re not really thinking about what great mileage it gets.
Then again, maybe I just don’t want to give Hewitt his due because of this outfit he helps sponsor, called the Fanatics. They’re a group of loud, sweaty, face-painting boosters who sit together in the stands and make life miserable for Hewitt’s opponents. They were started by a hulking guy whose name is right out of Anthony Burgess’s futuristic novel, A Clockwork Orange: Wazza. If you have a strange fascination with the demi-monde of the professional fan, check out the Fanatics’ website.
Hewitt (he’s “Rusty” to them; they’re obviously connoisseurs of the annoying) draws inspiration from the Fanatics; in fact, he buys their tickets, raising an interesting question: Is it fair of Hewitt to finance the efforts of a group so irritating that, while doing nothing wrong in any technical sense, can torment Hewitt’s opponent and conceivably ruin the experience for any innocent spectator unfortunate enough to be seated near its members? Don’t you have the right to watch a match without getting sucked into some cult’s maturity issues?
The Fanatics were out in force tonight, about two dozen strong, and about halfway through the second set it occurred to me that if they were making it impossible for me to concentrate on the match, how did poor Roddick feel? I mean, Hewitt hits a forehand winner and, in the silence that precedes his next serve, one of these mouth-breathers shouts out, “That’s the salt, now give him the pickle!” The Fanatics were fascinating in the same way a train wreck, or a couple having a horrible fight on the subway, are. For a while, International Herald Tribune and New York Times tennis writer (as well as TENNIS Magazine contributor) Chris Clarey and I tried to figure out why the Fanatics were so unremittingly offensive while the army of Swedes who routinely exhibit the same group personality disorder seem, to use Chris’s word, “cute.” I worked up a pretty good head of scorn for these guys and managed to convince myself that the Fanatics must be the real reason that Roddick gradually lost concentration and, at one set all, fumbled away a 3-0 lead, enabling Hewitt to storm into the final.
In the post-match presss conference, I asked Roddick if the Fanatics had gotten to him. He replied, “No, they’re totally respectful. They’re great. I think they’re great. They do their chants, but when you step up to the line, they always stop.”
What does Roddick know? He’s just a player anyway.