Hewitt in the mix for Australian Open debut as 42-year local grand slam first emerges

Cruz Hewitt, the promising son of Aussie tennis great Lleyton, could make his first Australian Open appearance next month with consideration given to a qualifying wildcard.

Watch every ball of Australia v India LIVE & ad-break free during play in 4K on Kayo | New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer.

Hewitt, 16 on Wednesday, was given a wildcard to the junior boys event in 2024 and lost his first-round match to sixth seed Alexander Razeghi.

But he has continued to improve after another year on the junior circuit, going 30-10 this calendar year. Hewitt is currently ranked No.106 in the world, but that is slightly misleading as the overwhelming majority of the players above him are older; he is 15th among players born in 2008.

His father, the former world No.1, won his first tournament in Adelaide at age 16.

Now Hewitt could be given a grand slam opportunity with The Age reporting Tennis Australia is weighing up whether to hand him a wildcard for the qualifying tournament.

That would mean Hewitt would need to win three matches against ATP-level opposition to make the main draw.

The decision would not be wildly out of step with previous years. In 2024, eight Aussie men and nine women were given qualifying wildcards, including then-17-year-old Hayden Jones – currently the nation’s top-ranked junior.

Last year, initial main draw wildcards were awarded in early December, before the final batch of main draw plus qualifying wildcards were confirmed in early January.

Hewitt’s dad said on Tuesday Cruz was set to play an ITF junior event in Traralgon along with the Australian Open junior boys tournament, which is held during the second week of the grand slam and thus well after main draw qualifying.

Last week the singles main draw entry lists were confirmed, with an impressive 10 men but just one woman – world No.96 Olivia Gadecki – earning direct entry into the grand slam.

The Australian men’s crop is one of the strongest in years, with three players set to be seeded – world No.9 Alex de Minaur, world No.24 Alexei Popyrin and world No.26 Jordan Thompson. It would be the most Australian men seeded in the 32-seed era, and the most since 1982, an era when the field was almost entirely made up of Aussies and Americans.

Nick Kyrgios will make his return using a protected ranking, having played just three matches since the 2022 US Open when he was briefly the tournament favourite. He has played just one match in the last two years, a straight sets loss in Stuttgart in June 2023.

Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka are the defending singles champions.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, the Adelaide International confirmed the returns of reigning champions Jiri Lehecka and Jelena Ostapenko with 16 top-20 players to play the January warm-up event.

The women’s side is much stronger, with five top-10 players – No.4 Jasmine Paolini, No.7 Jessica Pegula, No.8 Emma Navarro, No.9 Daria Kasatkina and No.10 Barbora Krejcikova – to play the WTA 500 event.

Tommy Paul, Lorenzo Musetti and Thanasi Kokkinakis headline the ATP 250 event.

Earlier in the summer of tennis, Novak Djokovic will make his 2025 debut at the Brisbane International.