Hewitt Getting Ready For Next Year And The Next Year

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 13th November 2012

Hewitt Getting Ready For Next Year And The Next Year

epa03397893 Australia's Lleyton Hewitt returns the ball during the match against Germany's Florian Mayer during the Davis Cup match between Germany and Australia at the Rotherbaum tennis stadium in Hamburg, Germany, 14 September 2012. The Davis Cup matches between Germany and Australia take place between 14-16 September 2012. EPA/DANIEL REINHARDT |

Lleyton Hewitt is determined the New Year of 2013 will not be his last on the ATP World Tour and even has his mind on contesting the 2014 Australian Open.

The 31 year-old Aussie, who currently plays with a metal plate in one of his big toes and has undergone a succession of surgeries in recent years, has finalized his upcoming schedule and said: “I’m definitely playing all next year. And I can’t see myself stopping at the Paris indoors (BNP Paribas Masters) with the Australian Open only a couple of months later.”

Hewitt was speaking at the launch of next January’s AAMI Classic exhibition that is traditionally contested at Kooyong as a prelude to the Australian Open.

“Unless of course, there was a major injury, and that could happen to anyone. But right at the moment, 2013 won’t be my last year.”

After his all troubles of late, Hewitt now feels refreshed. He has already began his training program in preparation for the New Year and continued: “I guess when you bounce back from five surgeries in the last four years, mentally, I feel fresh and ready to go out there and compete.”

Hewitt admitted delicate foot surgery in February left his career in the balance and he said: “I didn’t know how I would bounce back from the operation. It was such major surgery that no other athlete has tried to come back and play competitive sport after it. So there were a lot of unknowns for me.

“I feel like after Wimbledon and around the Olympics, I started to get more confident in my movement which is such a big part of my game.

“Towards the end of the year, I played some really good tennis and obviously knocked off a couple of top 30 players and it was good to beat world no.12 Juan Monaco three weeks ago on a slow, indoor court that doesn’t really suit me game.

“It gives me a lot of confidence that I can go out there and still match it with the best players in the world.”

Hewitt said he felt mentally fresh after being forced to sit out such large slabs of the tour over the past couple of years. “Fitness-wise last year (summer), I couldn’t do a proper pre-season. I was having injections every second week just to try and get through any kind of training.

“There were a lot of unknowns how I was going to bounce back from that. However at the moment, I absolutely pain-free in the foot and I have got all the confidence back in my movement.”