Video: Hewitt on Tomic Troubles, Young Aussies

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Video: Hewitt on Tomic Troubles, Young Aussies

Bernard Tomic blasted Tennis Australia officials and was suspended from the Australian Davis Cup team for its quarterfinal comeback conquest of Kazakhstan last month.

But Tomic has an iconic Aussie champion as an ally: Lleyton Hewitt.

Video: How Well Do You Know Andy Murray?

Hewitt, the Australian Davis Cup record holder for most total wins (58-19), most singles wins (42-14) and most years played (17), has been tabbed as eventual successor to current captain Wally Masur—and remains a Tomic supporter.

Hewitt, whom Tomic calls "a mentor", revealed he talked to the Australian No. 1 daily during Tomic's successful defense of his Bogota title last month.

"I was talking to Bernie every day during Bogota; I didn't doubt him for a second there," Hewitt told the media during his press conference in Washington, D.C. "I thought he'd win the tournament. He plays well in those conditions, too."

Tomic ripped TA officials, including Craig Tiley and Hall of Famer Patrick Rafter, during a Wimbledon press conference. Tomic essentially called Rafter out as an incompetent "mask" for Tennis Australia.

"[Rafter] doesn't know what he's doing. They are giving him a budget. He doesn't know what he's doing. What's his job?" Tomic said. "Deal with it, Pat. You're the mask. He's a mask for these guys, Craig and Steve. They don't want to deal with this. They give it to Pat. ‘You do the work.’ You take care of this and that. He doesn't know what he's doing.”

Hewitt said he believes Tomic's remarks were "blown out of proportion."

"Bernie's a different guy," Hewitt said. "Some of those things, it's water off a duck's back sometimes. I think it all got blown out of proportion a lot.

"It's pretty tough at the moment. He's obviously in the spotlight and he's got to learn to deal with it in the best possible way that he can and still go out there and compete. He's gonna have ups and downs like everyone, we all have over the years, and hopefully he comes out of it on the right side.

Australia has six players ranked in the Top 100: No. 26 Tomic, No. 38 Nick Kyrgios, No. 62 Sam Groth, No. 72 Thanasi Kokkinakis, No. 84 John Millman and No. 95 James Duckworth, who pushed Kei Nishikori to three sets in a Washington, D.C. loss on Tuesday night.

"We're in a lot better place than we were the last five, eight years," Hewitt said. "We have obviously three exceptionally talented young players that are capable of playing with the big names on the big stage. And then we have a good group after those guys such as Grothy, Ducky, John Millman then we've got another kid, Omar Jasika, on the way up who won the U.S. juniors last year. So there's a good crop of players coming up, but they've still got work to do. Even the best young ones they've still got a couple of areas to work on to take that next step."

Photo credit: Davis Cup

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