Hewitt in the firing line
Purcell hits out over treatment by Davis Cup captain
MAX Purcell has taken aim at Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt after his Australian Open qualifying win, saying the former world No.1 “didn’t have the balls” to tell him he missed out on a wildcard.
The pair have long been at loggerheads but spent last week together in Sydney as part of Australia’s ATP Cup squad.
The only time 174thranked Purcell has played in the Australian Open singles main draw was when he qualified two years ago.
The 23-year-old, who blitzed Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy 6-4, 6-2 in an excellent firstround qualifying performance at Melbourne Park, alleges Hewitt avoided breaking the wildcard news to him.
“I actually was told I’d know on Thursday… (then) I’m hearing whispers in the Australian locker room from Lleyton saying something to ‘Crabby’ (Jaymon Crabb).
“Then, at like 11pm, I messaged Wally (Masur, Tennis Australia performance director) saying, ‘Mate, I’ve got three hours to pull out of Sydney, otherwise I’ll be stuck playing Sydney instead of qualies – what’s going on?’.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, no, Lleyton was supposed to tell you; I wasn’t supposed to tell you. I told him to tell you considering he was the one who didn’t want you to have it’.
“So, I didn’t end up finding out until 11pm Thursday, because I guess he didn’t have the balls to tell me in person.”
Alex Bolt, Aleks Vukic, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Chris O’Connell were the four Australian men who received main draw wildcards, while another went to fivetime Australian Open finalist Andy Murray.
Purcell is ranked behind all of them but had an outstanding second half of last season, including qualifying and making the semi-finals at the ATP 250 tournament at Eastbourne.
He upset Gael Monfils during that run and followed up with a Challenger title, before defeating then-world No.15 Felix Auger-Aliassime as a late call-up into the Tokyo Olympics singles draw.
Purcell’s form was far from a flash in the pan, given he qualified and made the second round at another ATP 250 event soon after, beating fellow Australian Jordan Thompson to do so.
Hewitt and co. then awarded Purcell a US Open wildcard as reward and he took a set off top-20 Italian Jannik Sinner before more encouraging form at Challenger level.
Purcell said his coach, Nathan Healey, tried to fix the fractured relationship between him and Hewitt without success.
Asked the origins of the dispute, he simply said: “I’ve been a bit of a smart arse throughout my junior career … I guess he took it a little too seriously.”
Purcell was “surprised” not to score a wildcard and questioned whether there needed to be a change in who made wildcard decisions.
“I am 176 in the world, so I should be in qualifying, anyway. So, I’m kind of taking it like that,” Purcell said.
“Nothing against the boys who got it – hopefully they do really well in the main draw and anything they can do to try and push themselves towards that top 100 would be great, so it can give the next lot of guys some opportunities.”