Lets Go, Lleyton, Lets Go….

That was how the chants go from loyal Aussie fans when Lleyton plays the Australian Open and any other tournament internationally. But, of late, Hewitt has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, his ranking has dropped miserabl, no where near the No 1 ranking that he held for sometime, no chance of winning a Grand Slam, still trying to win his maiden Australian Open.  In the last week, his coach Roger Rasheed quit his position after an altercation with Hewitt after his quaterfinal loss at the Adelaide tournament.

I just happened to read a news item in one of the Indian dailies about the future of Indian tennis after Leander Paes.

The story is the same in Australia, who is after Lleyton ? He is only 25 years old and already facing the twilight of his career in my opinion. He risks being out of the top 20 in the rankings and this is a player who was number 1 for 80 weeks between November 2001 to June 2003.

The other player who was atleast worth mentioning was Mark Phillipousis, but he too has been distracted from tennis by his off court pursuits of girls and his problems with injuries.

Lleyton can still salvage some of his pride by concentrating on his game and not just by being all talk, no action.  He is still capable of rising above being coach-less for the Australian Open, but that angry attitude has to change.  Rasheed follows a list of players who have coached Lleyton including Jason Stoltenberg and Darren Cahill.
So, the question remains, who is the next big one after Lleyton for Australian men’s tennis ?

Well, Australia has made it to the football World Cup next year by beating Uruguay in the penalty shoot out yesterday night at the Telstra stadium in Sydney. The Socceroos were a jubiliant lot, understandably because they have been waiting for this for 32 years. The score 4-2 in favour of the Aussies.

Getting back to home after work last night was a 2 hr trip, usually a half hr one. No trams, trains because of the win, lots of people dancing in the streets, honking their car horns, waving the flag and of course, totally drunk. At the very end a tram came along for my suburb Glen Huntly, and I even had a gent in the tram who was supposed to head back to the city but came the opposite way, and that was the last tram. Wonder how he got back !!

Good news for the Socceroos, but bad news for a soccer crazy South American nation.