“It was a brutal decision,” he said. “The Davis Cup has been my priority pretty much my whole career. And there’s no bigger goal for me than to be able to one day lift the trophy with Lleyton, with the team, for Australia. So that’s been my top priority. We’ve come awfully close to it for a couple of years now.”
“I’m just focused on getting better as a player so I can help the team when they need me and I have full faith in all the Aussie players going to Ecuador.”
Alex de Minaur’s only tattoo.
Australia failed to qualify for the Davis Cup final last year for the first time since 2021. Hewitt named James Duckworth, Aleksander Vukic, Rinky Hijikata, Jordan Thompson and Thanasi Kokkinakis for the encounter in Ecuadro.
Hewitt said he and de Minaur had long discussions about whether he should participate and were happy with where they landed.
“When the draw came out, it was extremely difficult,” Hewitt said. “With the time of year, the conditions, the surface, so many variables… for me and Alex, it’s been working on not putting him in the position he was in a year and a half ago and having to play injured for nine months.”
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“Big picture in mind, we’ve come up with a plan that we think is best for him,” he added.
Hewitt also confirmed that world number 50 Alexei Popyrin has become unavailable for selection.
“I’d like to call Alexei,” Hewitt said. “Especially with his style of play on clay and the weapons he has. Then of course we went after guys who give us a lot of depth in singles matches, but we also have some good doubles options among the team.”
“But there are so many unknowns. Not many of our guys have played at that high altitude or even close to it, so we won’t know the conditions 100 percent until we get there. But I feel like we have a lot of options.”
Australia will face the winner of Wednesday’s Poland-Netherlands clash in the United Cup quarter-finals on Friday.
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