by Brett McMaster

The U.S Open 2001 was surely a win for the ages,

As a little Aussie champion re-wrote the history pages.

Gustafsson, Haas and Roddick were dispatched along the way,

And his disposal of Yevgeny was the quickest to this day.

6-1 6-2 6-1 the score as he kept the Russian guessin’,

I bet he regrets the day he said he’d give the kid a lesson,

For the one thing you can never do is write this fella off,

And you got what you deserved ‘cos you’re a flog Kafelnikov.

But in the final was an adversary, perhaps the best we’ve seen,

So he went armed with his self-belief and his heart of gold and green.

The young lad started nervously then began to find his feet,

And from that time on the little man would be surely hard to beat,

By the time the first set neared its end, the pup was teaching tricks,

But the old dog couldn’t learn ‘em and was humbled 7-6.

Now it would take a brave man to admit that he had reckoned,

That he had predicted what would be the score line in the second,

From game one where he broke the champ to the seventh where he clinched it,

The second set was over and if you blinked you would have missed it.

Now surely in the third set Pete would lift out of his rut,

But Lleyton just kept chasing balls like a frisky farmyard mutt.

He swung his racquet with the precision that a woodsman swings his axe,

And blow by blow the four-time champ was halted in his tracks.

That final point, the victory cry, in our memory it is frozen,

And at 20 years of age a new champion had been chosen.

As the two men stood together while they did the presentation,

The smile that beamed across his face was one of pure elation,

Of a childhood dream fulfilled in the grandest possible way,

From junior days in Adelaide to a Grand Slam champ today,

And the joy I felt was something that with my own kids I will share,

Because the king had been de-throned and passed the crown down to his heir.

Now surely it’s a long time since we’ve seen a bloke this driven,

Powered by a dose of Aussie pride and the huge heart he’s been given,

The backwards cap, the C’mon cries and of course the inverted goose,

When Lleytons out there on the court he lets it all hang loose,

That’s why you’ve got to love him, even though at times he’s loud,

Because the little bloke’s all heart, he’s Australian and he’s proud.

Since turning pro in ’98 you’ve had the tools to do it,

Now you are a grand slam champ, you’re a legend Lleyton Hewitt!

THE END