Hewitt bid to win new format of Davis Cup

IT’S 15 years since Australia’s last Davis Cup final triumph and Lleyton Hewitt is vowing his team has the chance to win another — in whatever format the competition is played.

Australian tennis’s greatest modern-day Davis Cup warrior has been a vocal opponent of the radical overhaul of the century-old teams event. For the first time in 119 years, the 2019 Davis Cup will climax with a seasonending 18-team tournament in Madrid.

Runners-up last week in this year’s final to Croatia, the French are threatening to boycott the event in protest to the changes implemented by the International Tennis Federation.

Hewitt won’t stoop to such drastic measures and is pledging to stay on as captain as long as Tennis Australia chooses him.

“It’s disappointing, but I’ve spoken to Johnny [Millman] and Alex [de Minaur] and these guys about it and we’ll use it as a tool to play for Australia,” Hewitt said.

“It doesn’t matter what the format. We don’t agree with it, we don’t like it but if we get picked — me as captain and then to play, we’ll do it.

“And we’ll do absolutely everything we can to win it.”

After losing a Septembedr World Group playoff to Austria, Australia hosts Bosnia and Herzegovina in a qualifying tie in Adelaide from February 1-2.

Hewitt has a glut of talent to choose from, with world No.31 de Minaur, Nick Kyrgios (35), Millman (38) and Matt Ebden (46) all finishing the year in the top 50. Seven more players are in the top 160.

Hewitt is delighted with the revival but not getting carried away: “It’s going pretty well. There’s improvements we can make but it’s good to have some young guys up there now pushing each other as well.”