{"id":50763,"date":"2026-07-29T02:14:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/29\/cruise-hewitt-wins-his-first-win-against-an-atp-top-100-opponent\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T02:14:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T06:14:31","slug":"cruise-hewitt-wins-his-first-win-against-an-atp-top-100-opponent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/29\/cruise-hewitt-wins-his-first-win-against-an-atp-top-100-opponent\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruise Hewitt wins his first win against an ATP Top 100 opponent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A victory in Cruise Hewitt&#8217;s ATP Tour main event debut will catapult the son of a gun into the world rankings.<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>Hewitt, who just reached the Wimbledon men&#8217;s final, defeated former world No. 37 Marcos Giron (currently No. 85 in the rankings) 6-3, 6-4 in Washington DC on Tuesday (Wednesday Australian Eastern Time).<\/p>\n<p>The Australian, who did not face a break point, became the fourth player born since 2008 to win a tour-level match, and the youngest player to win against Washington since Japan&#8217;s Kei Nishikori in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>The teenager qualified thanks to a bye after leading both Dusan Lajovic and top seed Zach Svajda, moving up 255 places to No. 357 in the ATP live rankings.<\/p>\n<p>In the next round he will face the winner between his compatriot and mentor Alex de Minaur and former world number three Stefanos Tsitsipas.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline inline-photo full\">\n<figure><picture><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0729%2Fr1694944_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=570&amp;format=jpg, https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0729%2Fr1694944_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=1140&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(min-width: 376px)\"><source data-srcset=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0729%2Fr1694944_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=375, https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0729%2Fr1694944_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&amp;w=750&amp;cquality=40&amp;format=jpg 2x\" media=\"(max-width: 375px)\"\/><\/source><\/picture><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\n<p>He was warming up with his father, Leighton, a former world No. 1, two-time major winner and 2004 Washington champion, when Leighton told him to lap up the moment.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;(He) told me the main thing is to have fun, because this was my first tour-level match&#8230;and to take every single point, enjoy the atmosphere, enjoy the crowd. And that&#8217;s what I did,&#8221; Cruz said.<\/p>\n<p>Cruz said he is dealing with the pressures of carrying the Hewitt name &#8220;as best I can.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Obviously there&#8217;s some pressure, but I&#8217;m trying to look at it positively and I&#8217;m happy with the way I&#8217;ve handled it so far,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline float-r inline-track\">\n<h2 class=\"img-title\">Stay up to date with ESPN<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Stay on top of all the big sports news. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><button class=\"button-alt full-width md stand-alone\" onclick=\"window.location='https:\/\/signup.espn.com.au\/newsletter\/?action=launch&amp;ex_cid=espnau_site_home_rightrail_module';\">Subscribe<\/button><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m really happy with the way I fought today. I came out and started pretty well, so I&#8217;m excited to move on to the next round.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>De Minaur is defending his title in the US capital and has just embarked on a two-day Portofino honeymoon after marrying fellow pro Katie Boulter in Tuscany last month.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a great time. It was everything I had imagined,&#8221; said de Minaur, who had recovered from the disappointment of losing in the fourth round at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was like our own little movie. We were able to celebrate with family and friends and have a very small honeymoon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Then we&#8217;re going to get on a plane here to Washington and straighten our heads and get back to being tennis players.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A victory in Cruise Hewitt&#8217;s ATP Tour main event debut will catapult the son of a gun into the world rankings. Hewitt, who just reached the Wimbledon men&#8217;s final, defeated former world No. 37 Marcos Giron (currently No. 85 in the rankings) 6-3, 6-4 in Washington DC on Tuesday (Wednesday Australian Eastern Time). The Australian, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2423,2051,6250,2370,24,84,30,52],"class_list":["post-50763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-atp","tag-cruise","tag-hewitt","tag-opponent","tag-tennis","tag-top","tag-win","tag-wins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}