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NY Times: Hewitt is "irascible and a control freak"

3517 Views 88 Replies 38 Participants Last post by  binkygirl
who is this Selena Roberts and what does she really know about tennis anyway? :rolleyes:

Lleyton slammed in NY press
From Paul Malone in New York
September 9, 2005

LLEYTON Hewitt has received scalding criticism of his attitude from one of the most influential newspapers in America as he steadied himself for his final push at the US Open.

A New York Times columnist ridiculed Hewitt as "irascible and a control freak" and criticised his entourage.

In a report a day after Hewitt had reached the US Open quarter-finals for a sixth consecutive year, Times columnist and former tennis reporter Selena Roberts compared the Australian unfavourably with the attitude and approach to sporting stardom from world No.1 Roger Federer, who has won his past 15 sets against Hewitt.

"Hewitt is unvarnished, irascible and impolitic," Roberts wrote.

"He is as self-absorbed as always. In a year when he referred to an umpire with a gay slur, in a season when he nearly fought with a Davis Cup opponent, Hewitt also revealed the depths of his inner control freak.

"According to Australian reports, Hewitt sold the media rights to his spring engagement, summer wedding and wife's pregnancy. So far, no autographed pictures have surfaced on eBay."

Hewitt will undoubtedly not take the criticism to heart and could find further motivation from it as he looks to put his imprint on the US Open after making the quarter-finals for a sixth consecutive year - a feat beyond Australian greats Rod Laver and John Newcombe and American champions John McEnroe and Pete Sampras.

Roberts said Hewitt had not changed since he was a top-ranking player embroiled in legal disputes with the ATP in 2002 and 2003 and the differences in his approach to being No.1, when compared to Federer's were due to their differing personalities, but also the Australian's support crew.

"Hewitt is surrounded by a bevy of yes-men and sycophantic handlers, while Federer has chosen a liberating, agent-less existence, grounded by a girlfriend/manager who will tell the emperor off," Roberts claimed.

It is not the first time that Hewitt has been castigated by US media organisations.

In July, American journalist Joel Drucker wrote an open letter to Hewitt in the American magazine Tennis which was critical of what he said was a lack of responsibility to tennis, particular in terms of his media availability.

"Are you a first-rate mate or a top-tier twerp?," Drucker wrote.

"Lleyton, what is it about you and your antics that even ticks off a man as gracious as James Blake?"

Some New York newspapers also castigated a 20-year-old Hewitt for making what they construed as accusations of racially-motivated bias against an African-American linesman in a match he played against Blake.

Roberts even found fault this week with Hewitt's tongue-in-cheek comments about the unusual pink shirt worn by his fourth-round victim Dominik Hrbaty.

"Hewitt had to save his typically tasteless remarks for later, when he poked at the holes designed and cut into the shoulder blades of Hrbaty's fashionista shirt," she said.

Hewitt had said at a press conference: "I wouldn't wear it, but it made it a lot easier for me to beat him. I just couldn't lose to a bloke wearing a shirt like that."

After reaching the quarter-finals for a sixth time at the age of 24, Hewitt, who plays Finn Jarkko Niemenin today for a semi-final berth, said he had no thoughts on retirement.

"It's a huge positive to have a great record here. It's not an easy grand slam to do well at, but I love playing in New York ... love the conditions," Hewitt said.

"I'd like to play as long as possible, as long as my body can put up with it. Who knows really? It's just a matter of taking as much care as possible with your body."

The Courier-Mail
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What a bitch :fiery:
WOWOW....................What a negative article to write..............Who did Lleyton piss off is my question............... :confused: ...........It has the smell of revenge.
oneandonlyhsn said:
What a bitch :fiery:
No kidding.....although I think she likes Roger only because he told her he wants to become an ambassador (I don't know of what) when he quits tennis.
She always writes really nasty unfair bitchy articles (albeit with a grain of truth :0).

She wrote a really nasty one about Capriati a couple of years ago.
Well, anyone who's been blessed to have met Joel Drucker knows he's a A-Class loser. And this biatch doesn't sound much different. Typical American journalism.

And, I'm getting tired of all the Blake shit! Blake has everyone fooled. I'm am not kidding guys. Anyone who's been to more than a few Blake matches can see this guy has a short fuse. He's tops my list of bigist ego in the game for sure. I don't want to get started on him. I used to like him like everyone else, but slowy I saw what he was about.
blosson said:
wouldn't he be an ambassador of tennis?
I suppose. But what exactly is that? Just someone who goes around and promotes the game? I'd like to see him in a commentary box some day.
I'd like to drop a "C" word for this one.
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mirkaland said:
I suppose. But what exactly is that? Just someone who goes around and promotes the game? I'd like to see him in a commentary box some day.

I think he would do an awesome job promoting the game. I don't want to see him become another commentator.
G O said:
And, I'm getting tired of all the Blake shit! Blake has everyone fooled. I'm am not kidding guys. Anyone who's been to more than a few Blake matches can see this guy has a short fuse. He's tops my list of bigist ego in the game for sure. I don't want to get started on him. I used to like him like everyone else, but slowy I saw what he was about.

You aren't the only one with that opinion................
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Another journalist with a holier-than-thou attitude. :rolleyes:

Nothing to see here, move along.
I had to laugh at the part where she talked about Lleyton's "obscene gestures." Bitch, it was CORIA who was grabbing his crotch, not Lleyton.

This bitch must be the only person in the world who actually thinks that Lleyton's comments about Hrbaty's shirt weren't funny. Talk about PMSing! :rolleyes:
"Hewitt is surrounded by a bevy of yes-men and sycophantic handlers"

I don't know if that's true but it sounds unlike Lleyton. I think he'd be more likely to have a few mates he plays football with hanging around, if anyone.
Socket said:
I had to laugh at the part where she talked about Lleyton's "obscene gestures." Bitch, it was CORIA who was grabbing his crotch, not Lleyton.

This bitch must be the only person in the world who actually thinks that Lleyton's comments about Hrbaty's shirt weren't funny. Talk about PMSing! :rolleyes:

WHY IS IT WHEN A WOMAN SAYS SOMETHING A MAN DOESN'T AGREE WITH SHE IS PSMing? :mad:
G O said:
Well, anyone who's been blessed to have met Joel Drucker knows he's a A-Class loser. And this biatch doesn't sound much different. Typical American journalism.

And, I'm getting tired of all the Blake shit! Blake has everyone fooled. I'm am not kidding guys. Anyone who's been to more than a few Blake matches can see this guy has a short fuse. He's tops my list of bigist ego in the game for sure. I don't want to get started on him. I used to like him like everyone else, but slowy I saw what he was about.
I don't think that Blake is any worse than most players, but I don't agree with the media that he's that much better than anbody else. It's just grating to hear the media grovel before him and serve him up to us as a cross between Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. He reads on the toilet while he shits just like everybody else.
Selena Roberts is one of the most knowledgeable tennis journalists. Nothing she said wasn't obvious. Hewitt is detested by virtually all in the game. What's more interesting is what line a player has to cross before insiders will publicly criticize players. Usually the crap they say could just as well have been written by some pr agency. Finally, it's become ok not to be apologists for Wms. sisters, but that took their obvious indifference to the game, emergence of James Blake & finally the beyond the pale behavior over the Hurricane. Wonder why it became acceptable to state the obvious about the utterly obnoxious Hewitt?
mangoes said:
WHY IS IT WHEN A WOMAN SAYS SOMETHING A MAN DOESN'T AGREE WITH SHE IS PSMing? :mad:
I am a woman, and I know enough about my gender to know if when a woman is PMSing, either literally or figuratively.
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