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1/21/11 1:27 PM | Johan Lindahl
One-time Aussie bad-boy player of two decades ago, Pat Cash, has blamed the media for a constant criticism which has trailed Lleyton Hewitt throughout his career.
The 29-year-old former No. 1 Hewitt exited the Australian Open in the first round at the hands of David Nalbandian.
But Cash, who won the Wimbledon in 1987, said that the difficult Hewitt reputation is in fact a product of the Aussie media. “Unfortunately, for many years the Australian media really gave it to tennis players - including me. I was probably the start of it all," said the 45-year-old, now a commentator and coach.
"It got so bad that the players - myself, Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippousis - rarely spoke to any Australian media," he told the Foxsports website. “Some kind of truce was worked out among Tennis Australia and the media, and I think Pat Rafter, being the all-round nice guy, helped settle that.
“But the mistrust in the media runs deep with those players I mentioned. We're different personalities. Some people will like us, some people won't. That will get people talking. The bottom line is that it's all about selling newspapers. In Australia we have too much media and too few stories.”
Cash also said that the Aussie tradition of criticising successful sportsmen and others in society - the so-called tall-poppy syndrome - came directly from Britain on the convict ships of two centuries ago. “The tall poppy syndrome is a nice trait we got from the English. They do exactly the same thing. Pure and simple, it's jealousy.”
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