Lleyton Hewitt made history on November 19, 2001, when he became the youngest world No. 1 at the age of 20, a record that has since been broken by Carlos Alcaraz.
The turn of the millennium was a time when Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi were not yet at the peak of their powers, while 19-year-old Roger Federer had not yet established himself at the top of the game. To capitalize was Hewitt.
The Australian made waves in 2000 when he reached his first major semi-final at the US Open, but it was his consistency combined with standout runs in 2001 that saw him become the second Australian, after Patrick Rafter, to rise to No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings.
Hewitt started the season by winning the title on home soil in Sydney, before enjoying a successful Sunshine Double and progressing to the semi-finals in Indian Wells and Miami. Grass-court titles at Queen’s in ‘s-Hertogenbosch followed, but it was only after the American hard-court swing that the Aussie made his charge to No. 1.
Hewitt arrived at the US Open as world number 4, 1,360 points behind world number 1 Gustavo Kuerten. However, the Australian delivered in New York, beating Andy Roddick, Yevgeny Kafelnikov and Sampras on his way to his first major title.
After closing the gap on Brazilian Kuerten, Hewitt stormed to his fifth title of the season in Tokyo. After qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals, the 20-year-old went into the prestigious year-end event knowing that if he won the trophy he was assured of rising to No. 1. However, the same applied to two of his rivals: Kuerten and Agassi.
Hewitt remained undefeated after a three-set win against Sebastien Grosjean before securing a convincing victory against Agassi. This straight-sets result saw the pieces of the puzzle fall into place faster than expected as the race for No. 1 turned a corner. By defeating Rafter in his final round-robin match, Hewitt qualified for the semifinals and, importantly, secured No. 1 rights. He defeated Juan Carlos Ferrero after a seven-match loss in the semi-finals and then defeated Grosjean again to win the event for the first time.
Hewitt would spend 75 consecutive weeks at No. 1, the third best of all time, after first rising to No. 1 behind Roger Federer (237 weeks) and Jimmy Connors (160 weeks). Hewitt was just one of five players (also Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner) to spend more than a year at No. 1 as the first world No. 1.
[NEWSLETTER FORM]
#Day #Hewitt #history