Roger Rasheed backs Lleyton Hewitt in turmoils unleashed by Bernard Tomic
Unlike in the Australian Fed Cup team where Alicia Molik runs everything smoothly and without turmoils, things are looking much darker and dubious in the Davis Cup squad of one of the biggest tennis nation and they will hardly settle down anytime soon as it appears! After the first round loss at the Australian Open against Marin Cilic, Bernard Tomic unleashed fury towards the Davis Cup captain and a former world no. 1 Lleyton Hewitt, saying he will not play for the national team as long as Hewitt stays in charge. Bernard doesn't understand while Lleyton is still active in doubles, often in the Davis Cup rubbers as well, and he has questioned some of the calls the captain has made in the recent years.
In Tomic's words, that was especially evident in Hewitt's behavior towards Thanasi Kokkinakis who had been sidelined from the team in 2017 and failed to receive a wild card at this year's Australian Open, having to qualify to reach the main draw. The third Aussie player who is not on the same side as Hewitt is Nick Kyrgios and it should be interesting to see who will represent the country against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Adelaide in February. A fellow Aussie Roger Rasheed who worked with Lleyton between 2003-2006 has taken Hewitt's side in this dispute, saying he has every right to make the best possible decisions as the captain and call players he thinks that could deliver the most in the particular tie.
Also, Rasheed urged Tomic to focus on his game and work on a regular basis to improve his ranking and get back where he was before.
“Lleyton is the Australian Davis Cup captain,” Rasheed said. “When you’re the captain, you can decide to steer that how you wish and Lleyton has done that and he’s done it the way he wanted to take hold and deliver his leadership. It's like a coach of a football team. There are always going to be players that love the coach. There is going to be a few players if they’re not getting a game and they think they should be getting a game, they’ll have different feelings for the coach. I think it’s just one of those natural play outs as far as teams and coaches go. We can see the admiration that someone like Alex de Minaur has for Lleyton. There is Jordan Thompson.. there are guys out there that are showing how important it is for Lleyton to be in there.
I think you’ve got to be true to yourself out there on the tennis court. I think those comments are not warranted comments. Hewitt gave everything to the sport and you’ve got someone having pot shots. Regardless of what the situation is I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. For Bernie, I’d love him just to put his head down, get himself in the condition that he needs to be to play tennis at a professional level, day in day out, week in week out and offer himself to the challenge. But at the moment we don’t see that product. To then be making the comments that he made, I think you’ve got to be looking after your backyard.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2VYjxD1
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