The TENNISREPORTERS.NET Newsletter: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 30, NO. 59

The 'giant' and the 'scrapper' lead Australia over Spain

By Eleanor Preston
Special to tennisreporters.net

Susan Mullane/ Camerawork USA

FROM THE DAVIS CUP IN MELBOURNE – You would be hard pushed to find two more different people than Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis, the men who joined forces to secure Australia its 28th Davis Cup trophy.

In some parallel universe they might have made a great comic double act, the tall, laconic Philippoussis playing stooge to the hyperactive little bundle of nervous energy alongside him.

They are opposites in almost every way. Philippoussis is a lumbering giant of a man, towering over his slight, fleet-footed friend. In terms of personality, they are a million miles apart too. Where Hewitt is quick-witted and intense when questioned, Philippoussis speaks slowly and quietly, his dark eyes looking out from a furrowed brow.

In tennis terms they are just as different. Philippoussis is the flashy, all-or-nothing force of nature; Hewitt the scrapper and chaser of lost causes, ready to hang in there for as long as it takes.

It's a daunting combination, and one which, along with doubles team of Todd Woodbridge and Wayne Arthurs, has swept all before in this year's Davis Cup competition.

There is something about Hewitt and Philippoussis which somehow sums up everything that Davis Cup should be about: the bringing together of different elements to achieve a single goal. Sport should always aim to bring people together and looking at Philippoussis and Hewitt sitting on the sidelines as they watched Saturday's doubles, it was hard not to be touched. Neither is a stranger to controversy – Philippoussis with his history of falling out with Australia's tennis fraternity and Hewitt with ongoing row with the ATP – yet they looked like two old friends watching a baseball or soccer game, giggling and bantering, pausing every now and again to roar on their team.

Their captain, John Fitzgerald, can take a large slice of credit for the jolliness in his camp and the way his team, throughout their Davis Cup campaign, have rallied together through good and bad times.

"It helps when you win," he joked, while his team giggled alongside him. "They are a special group of players, these four. They have all got their own weird little habits and ways but we had a common goal. They are four magnificent tennis players."

Susan Mullane/Camerawork USA

"Everyone played their part," added Hewitt. "Flip (the team's nickname for Philippoussis) and I knew that we were confident in each other as players. We have been trying to help each other out all week leading into this tie and it's nice to know everyone got a point in the final. Everyone put in 110 percent in practice and this is just an awesome reward."

That 110 percent was there for all to see both in the way Philippoussis played through shoulder pain in his 7-5, 6-3, 1-6, 2-6, 6-0 win over the sore-legged Juan Carlos Ferrero to clinch the tie, 3-1. It was also apparent in the way his teammates roared him on and the way they celebrated afterwards.

When Philippoussis had dragged himself up from the ground after collapsing with emotion, he hugged Fitzgerald before another, smaller figure came rushing at him from the sidelines. It was Hewitt, who was swept up by an open-armed Philippoussis in a bear hug so engulfing that they almost appeared to form a single, giant person, a blur of their team's green and gold colors.

Who could ask for a more appropriate image to sum up Australia's Davis Cup triumph, or the beauty of Davis Cup itself, than that?