Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt comes out of retirement to play with 16-year-old son

Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt came out of retirement to play with his son Cruz at an ATP Challenger event, and the result of that match was absolutely shocking.

Lleyton Hewitt was once the highest-ranked tennis player in the world. He spent a total of 80 weeks as the world No. 1 and won two singles Grand Slam titles in his tennis career. On top of that, he also won a doubles major at the 2000 US Open.

Today, Hewitt is 44 years old, and he serves as Australia's Davis Cup team captain, a role from which he was suspended for 2 weeks by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) following an incident involving a doping official.

Hewitt ended his singles tennis career in 2016 with a second-round loss at the Australian Open to David Ferrer. He continued playing doubles until 2020, but he only competed in a few events, officially ending his playing career in front of the home crowd at the Australian Open with a first-round loss alongside Jordan Thompson.

But almost six years later, Lleyton Hewitt returned to the tennis courts again, this time at an ATP Challenger 75 tournament in Sydney, Australia. As a former athlete himself, Hewitt wanted to take the chance to play alongside his son, Cruz, a 16-year-old talented player trying to make his mark on the Challenger Tour.

Cruz Hewitt won his first singles match at the event, beating Omar Jasika in the first round, but he lost in his second match to Hayato Matsuoka. Both matches were long three-setters, but Cruz was likely more than happy to enter the court once more on Wednesday afternoon.

Thanks to a wild card from the tournament organizers, he had a chance to play with his father at the NSW Open in Sydney, as they appeared together in the doubles draw. The Hewitt team was fortunate with the draw, as they drew fellow wild cards Pavle Marinkov and Hayden Jones. Both of those players are 19, so even combined, they couldn't match Lleyton's experience.

The biggest question mark ahead of this unexpected match was, of course, Lleyton Hewitt's level, but what happened during the 46 minutes the players spent on the court probably shocked everyone watching.

Cruz Hewitt started on serve and won that game, and the doubles team of Marinkov and Jones did the same right after. That appeared to be a classic start of a doubles tennis match, but what followed wasn't that usual.

The Hewitt father-son duo won 11 games in a row, completely thrashing their opponents to win 6-1, 6-0 in just 46 minutes. It was an unexpected result, but certainly a great memory for both Cruz and Lleyton.

They have now qualified for the quarter-finals of the event. Another Australian duo of Calum Puttergill and Dane Sweeny, will test them.