Perth, Jan 5 (DPA) Lleyton Hewitt has no desire to bother with reconciliation with teenaged tyro Bernard Tomic as the feud between the pair threatens Australian Davis Cup unity.
Hewitt and the 17-year-old US and Australian Open junior champion have been conducting a war of words over the past half year.
And Aussie number one Hewitt, a two-time Grand Slam champion and flag-bearer for the national game, said he has no intention of easing the growing boilover.
“It’s not my priority,” he said Tuesday at the Hopman Cup in Perth of reports that Tomic wanted to end the drama. “I’m not losing any sleep over it.
“Right now, as I prepare to do as well as possible at the Australian Open, it’s just a distraction. I don’t need it.”
Earlier Tuesday, the wheels fell off for Tomic as the rattled teenager took a 6-4, 6-4 first-round loss at the ATP event in Brisbane to Ukrainian qualifier Oleksandr Dolgopolov as players prepared for the start of the Grand Slam in Melbourne on Jan 18.
The bad blood between the Australian players erupted last summer in the week before Wimbledon when Australian-Croatian Tomic refused to train with Hewitt with reports indicating the youngster thought the 28-year-old former number one “not good enough.”
The Tomic camp said it all came down to the fact that the youngster had contracted swine flu and did not want to pass it on.
Hewitt upped the ante last week when he hinted that Tomic did not deserve a place on the Davis Cup team of the former world tennis power, now fighting in the Asian relegation zone.
The Tomic camp, led by fiery father John, charged Hewitt with playing the race card because of the family’s Croatian heritage.
rounak