The Hewitts’ hectic home and away lifestyle has Bec pining for a return to Australia with their children, and a career of her own. Katherine Chatfield reports.
As Bec Hewitt watched husband Lleyton play at the Australian Open last week, she veered between wide smiles of joy and moments of sullen reflection.
The pretty blonde clapped vigorously each time Lleyton won a point, but in quieter moments she appeared to be lost in her own thoughts, at one point burying her head in her hands.
But it wasn’t Lleyton crashing out of the tournament in the fourth round to a near-faultless Roger Federer that upset the young mum. The bubbly former Home And Away star couldn’t get out of her mind that soon her precious time down under would be up – and once again she would have to return to the transient life of the tennis circuit.
Brought up in Sydney’s western suburbs surrounded by close family, the 26-year-old can’t shake off her desire to return to the environment she grew up in. She is said to be craving the simplicity of Australian life.
Instead of living out of a suitcase while she supports Lleyton on tour and looks after their children, Mia, 4, and Cruz, 1, she’s desperate to create a stable environment where she and her family can enjoy a quiet, settled existence.
But sadly for Bec, life on the road is what she signed up for when she married her tennis star husband four-and-a-half years ago.
“They are mostly on the road during the year,” one tennis insider, who has trained with Lleyton, tells Woman’s Day. “The tennis circuit is Bec’s real home until Lleyton retires. Anything else is secondary to that.
“She sometimes gets teary in other countries when the family has been travelling for ages.
I can understand she’s torn about leaving Australia again. For a tennis player and his family this is the best time of year to be here.”
Despite owning homes in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, the Hewitts have barely spent any time in Australia in the past year. To keep up with Lleyton’s tennis commitments, they have travelled to at least 10 countries in that time. For tax reasons, they cannot spend more than six months and one day here each year.
In an attempt to provide some sort of base for their children, they bought a house in the Bahamas last February, but have been there so infrequently they haven’t had time to settle in.
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