Cruz Hewitt was gasping for air with a towel over his head 15 minutes into his first official clash with Alex de Minaur in Washington on Friday.

The scoreboard was sobering for the 17-year-old rising star: 5-0 to de Minaur, his friend and regular guest at the dinner table for Christmas. Hewitt had won only six points, while nervously spraying almost double as many errors.

None of this was surprising, given the decade difference in age and even wider gap in their resumes.

De Minaur has routinely dispatched fellow Australians, and was never going to take it easy on the teenager, no matter how friendly they are off the court.

The world No.6 and defending champion finished the job with relative ease, 6-2, 6-3 in barely an hour over the Wimbledon junior boys’ finalist to book a quarter-final against Brandon Nakashima – but not before Hewitt showed glimpses of why he is so highly rated.

Hewitt smiled as he walked to the net afterwards before embracing de Minaur, who offered his protege kind words, including wishing him “good luck for the next 10 years of your career”.

“It was definitely weird,” de Minaur said post-match.

“I would say that I knew I was going to play him on the tour someday, but I didn’t actually expect it to be this week. It was an amazing feeling. Even all the lead-up, seeing all the incredible pictures that we have together, and how we’ve grown up, both of us, and I’m ecstatic.

“I’m glad that I managed to get through, but I’m sure we’re going to have many, many battles in the years to come.”

With Australian bands INXS, AC/DC and Midnight Oil fittingly blasting through the speakers at the change of ends, Hewitt shook off his error-strewn opening to illustrate why many good judges believe he has a bright future ahead.

It started with the son of former world No.1 Lleyton Hewitt coming out on top in a bruising extended rally to begin the sixth game of the match on de Minaur’s serve.

Hewitt nailed a down-the-line backhand pass winner at full stretch for 0-30, and shortly after, a fluffed de Minaur drop shot attempt delivered Hewitt the break and his first game of the match. Hewitt pumped his fist, and the Washington crowd gave him a warm response.

It was relief as much as anything else, but Hewitt’s uptick in form was here to stay.

A followed a clever chipped backhand low at de Minaur at the net with a more forceful backhand pass to leave the world No.6 at 30-all as he again tried to serve out the opening set.

De Minaur dodged consecutive breaks by throttling a backhand winner off a short return, but the set ended far differently than it kicked off.

Hewitt, who secured the first two top-100 victories of his fledgling career in Washington this week, is a polar opposite to his famous dad in playing style. He crushes first serves and forehands, which he demonstrated with a sizzling winner to go 1-0 up in the second set.

At that point, it was becoming pretty interesting. De Minaur limped to 30-all once more before knotting the set in what was suddenly a competitive contest.

Unfortunately for Hewitt, that was a short-lived status.

De Minaur pounced in the next game, punching an angled volley winner then benefiting from consecutive netted shots from his young rival to snatch another break of serve before quickly going 3-1 up.

Impressively, Hewitt carved out back-to-back love holds in response, refusing to give up. But de Minaur made his move with the finish line in sight. Serving at 3-5, Hewitt’s errors returned as de Minaur’s dinking and dunking and off-pace balls confounded him.

There was one last highlight for Hewitt.

Facing a second straight match point, he hung with de Minaur from the baseline then socked a forehand crosscourt winner that caught the sideline.

The match was over a point later, but Hewitt – who is certain to score a wildcard into next year’s Australian Open – did enough to keep the hype going.

“We’ve both hit with each other so often, and we’ve both practised and grown up with each other so often that we know each other’s games inside out,” de Minaur said.

“It was probably about who could execute a little bit better, and I think I managed to do that today. The serve helped me out in a couple of big moments, and that was probably the key thing today.”

‘Like my older brother’: Protege Hewitt to face de Minaur in Washington

The present and future of Australian tennis will collide in Washington DC early on Friday when newly married Alex de Minaur and his protege Cruz Hewitt face each other in the second round.

Former world No.1 Lleyton Hewitt’s 17-year-old son made the most of his qualifying wildcard to reach the ATP 500 event’s main draw and then upset 85th-ranked American Marcos Giron to continue his steep rise after reaching the Wimbledon boys’ final last month.

But the much-anticipated clash – scheduled for 3am AEST on Friday – depended on de Minaur beating his nemesis Stefanos Tsitsipas for just the second time in 14 match-ups, which he achieved with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory on Thursday.

Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt is a regular part of Team Demon, mostly at the grand slams, and that relationship has helped foster a close bond between de Minaur and Cruz Hewitt, too.

They train together, support one another from courtside, and even spend Christmases at the same table. Hewitt describes de Minaur as “like my older brother”.

“I think there’s got to be a lot of respect shown to [Cruz] because it’s definitely not easy being an ex-No.1 in the world’s son,” de Minaur said.

“Ever since he started [and] picked up the racquet … the expectation, the eyeballs, the spotlight was already on him. It’s not easy when there is that kind of weight behind your surname.”

De Minaur’s win followed closely behind being revealed this week as one of the six tennis stars competing at the invite-only Six Kings Slam, which offers a $US1.5 million ($2.2 million) appearance fee, plus $US6 million ($8.6 million) to the winner.

Defending champion Jannik Sinner, 2025 runner-up Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz round out the field.

It has been a whirlwind period for de Minaur, who married British player Katie Boulter in an intimate legal ceremony in Leicestershire, England, followed by a larger celebration in Tuscany, Italy. They squeezed in a brief honeymoon in Portofino before de Minaur returned to defend his Washington Open title.

The wedding helped the world No.6 brush off the devastation he felt in losing his fourth-round match at Wimbledon to Italy’s Flavio Cobolli, after which he said the circumstances of the defeat “breaks me inside”.

“I don’t think it was warranted, as much as a lot of people – myself included – wanted to make a big deal out of it,” de Minaur said of the reaction to his post-match comments.

“It became a really big thing, but realistically, it took me a couple of days to get over it. They were just the same feelings and emotions that any athlete has after a tough loss. Now, I’m feeling great.”

Hewitt’s own Wimbledon campaign, which was his last junior tournament, was a significant success despite losing the boys’ final in three sets to American rising star Jordan Lee.

To many, inside and outside Australia, the result legitimised the teenager as a top-tier prospect and proved he was more than just the “son of”. Hewitt backing up his Wimbledon run by qualifying in Washington then upsetting Giron has only furthered that cause as he emerges from his dad’s sizeable shadow.

“I try to deal with it as best I can,” Hewitt said of following in Lleyton’s footsteps.

“Obviously, there is still pressure, but I try to take the positive that comes with it as well. I’m happy with how I’m dealing with it so far.”

Hewitt told this masthead at Wimbledon that he hoped to be inside the world’s top 300 by year’s end. His Washington breakout means his ranking is already guaranteed to surge into the 360s from outside the top 600.

That will improve further if he can stun his mentor de Minaur, a seven-time major quarter-finalist.

“He’s like my older brother. I’ve known him basically my whole life,” Hewitt said after his first-round win, before he knew whether he would play de Minaur.

“He’s stayed with us. We have Christmas together also. He’s taught me so much – I think that would be a pretty cool memory for us.”

De Minaur won’t underestimate Hewitt, who stands about 190 centimetres and boasts a fearsome serve and forehand combination that is already proving problematic to rivals.

“I think what he’s done an incredible job of is maturing, getting a good head on his shoulders and becoming his own player,” de Minaur said.

“Having these results [shows] that he deserves to be where he is. I think he’s a great kid, he’s been doing great, and I think Lleyton has done an incredible job as his father and helping him out whenever he can.

“They’ve created a great atmosphere, and that’s led to him being a very good tennis player.”