Australia's Lleyton Hewitt has been inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame alongside Billie Jean King and the other members of the Original 9 who laid the groundwork for the women's professional tour.
In results announced Wednesday, Hewitt was the only one of five nominees in the Player Category who was voted in. He won Grand Slam singles titles at the U.S. Open in 2001 and Wimbledon in 2002, reached No. 1 in the ATP rankings and helped Australia win a pair of Davis Cup championships.
"I am hugely honoured to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame," Hewitt said.
"When you are competing, you're so focused on training and your results that week or that year, you don't really look ahead to something like this.
"But when that is all compiled up and deemed deserving of becoming a Hall of Famer, well, it's just the ultimate recognition for a player, and I'm so honoured.
"The Hall of Famers are people who I admired so much throughout my career – especially people like Rochey and Newk and Rocket and so many others.
"They were all motivating factors in my career and to be recognised alongside them in tennis history is an incredible honour."
The other nominees in that category were Lisa Raymond, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Sergi Bruguera and Jonas Bjorkman.
Van der Meer, who died in 2019, advocated for a universal teaching method in tennis and was elected in the Contributor Category, as were the Original 9.
Last year marked the 50th anniversary of when King, elected to the Hall in 1987 for her accomplishments on the court, and eight other players — Peaches Bartkowicz, Rosie Casals, Judy Dalton, Julie Heldman, Kerry Melville Reid, Kristy Pigeon, Nancy Richey and Valerie Ziegenfuss — took a stand against the disparity in prize money between men and women in the sport at the time.
"I guess you could say we were women's tennis suffragettes, in a way," Pigeon said.
On Sept. 23, 1970, they all signed $1 contracts with World Tennis Magazine publisher Gladys Heldman to participate in the first women-only tennis tournament. That set the stage for the Virginia Slims circuit and eventually today's WTA Tour.
https://twitter.com/TennisHalloFame/status/1364702123976441871Now all four Grand Slam tournaments offer equal prize money to women and men.
"There were three things we were really focused on achieving," King said. "No. 1, that any girl born in this world would have a place to play and compete. No. 2, that women would be appreciated for our accomplishments, not just our looks. And No. 3, that women would finally be able to make a living playing professional tennis. Today, every time a woman gets a check for competing in a Grand Slam or the WTA Tour or gets to play in a pro tournament, you can trace it back to that day."
from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/tennis/lleyton-hewitt-inducted-into-international-tennis-hall-of-fame/453888b3-ca0f-4c57-9a33-3dcb66b8198c
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