The Best Tennis I Saw At Wimbledon: Sometimes the best tennis isn’t obvious

July 14, 2026

The most enjoyable tennis I saw this past fortnight was the boys final between Jordan Lee, a 16 year old who’s mom is Slovak and trains in Lake Nona, and Cruz Hewitt, son of the 2002 Wimbledon champion and former world #1 Lleyton Hewitt. It was a hot and dry fortnight, and the crowd on court 1 was big and enthusiastic- the court solid as a rock, clean bounces, good footing.

I’ve seen Cruz since I saw him at the Orange Bowl, with his dad lurking in the bushes when he was 14. I didn’t think he was that good - he had odd form on his forehand-like trying to be Kyrgios but impossible to imitate. A year ago I had actually talked to Nick about him and he said he might be able to get good. When he finaled and had a high quality win along the way I got curious. First off, he cleaned up the forehand. Cruz got good. Very good.

I don’t know one thing about Lee and that was fun too- like going into a movie or a restaurant blind and being blown away.

The tennis from both kids was awesome. Phenomenal quality, long creative cracking points and an unreal comeback from Lee as he erased wide leads in both the 2nd and 3rd sets.

Cruz had the full box full of Tennis Australia personnel- that’s his life, different when you are tennis royalty. The pressure got to him, and it felt like it was box pressure. By the end he couldn’t hit a forehand. My friend Lara opined on it first. “Let him learn and play on his own- let him be a kid”, she said.

It was interesting to see the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat from players just starting out- and on such a huge stage. I popped these with my Leica, might not be perfect but hopefully you get the gist.