MELBOURNE, Australia -- Australia Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt on Thursday responded to harsh words from Bernard Tomic days earlier, saying the disagreement over Davis Cup selections escalated to threats to Hewitt and his family.
Hewitt did not go into detail other than to call them "blackmail threats and physical [threats]."
"I think the threats that I've received, for me and my family, that I've had for a year and a half now, I don't think anyone would reach out to a person that speaks like that," Hewitt said.
Hewitt was not asked whether he has contacted authorities related to the threats.
In a media conference following Hewitt's loss in the Australian Open doubles competition, the two-time Grand Slam winner also fielded questions about Tomic's accusations that Hewitt was giving preferential treatment to other Australians when it came to Davis Cup selections and whether he had a conflict of interest within Australian tennis.
Tomic alleged Hewitt was gifting Grand Slam wild cards to Australians within his "management company" and that Tomic, Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis all had issue with the way Hewitt was running the Davis Cup team.
"All these guys that got wild cards are under a system ... Polmans, Bolty, Jordan Thompson," Tomic said Monday. "They're all under his Lleyton's wing under the management company. It's all conflict of interest."
Saying he has not spoken to Tomic since Monday's comments, Hewitt denied he owns a management company.
Hewitt said Tomic wasn't in the picture for Davis Cup selection because he did not meet the "cultural standards" of the team.
"It was probably the abuse I copped," Hewitt said. "In the end, I drew a line in the sand and haven't spoken to him since. He won't play Davis Cup while I have anything to do with it."
Hewitt added that both Tomic and Kyrgios were not living up to the standards set for Davis Cup selection, pointing to Kyrgios' outburst on social media during Alex de Minaur's second-round win.
Kyrgios posted a poll to his Instagram followers asking whose match Hewitt was watching. The poll options were: "Demon" and "No one else," alluding to Tomic's accusations of a conflict of interest within the Australian tennis.
Hewitt said Kyrgios' antics on social media was "one of the standards" he was not meeting but acknowledged the 23-year-old's Davis Cup career was "salvageable."
"Bernie's [Davis Cup career] is not," he said.
Hewitt added that he had been supportive of a troubled Tomic for some time and that "deep down [Tomic] knows what I've done for him."
"I've flown up to the Gold Coast trying to put teams around him, especially when things were hard in his family life," Hewitt said. "When I was working with Bernard, I realized quickly that he didn't work hard enough. He didn't have the [offensive] weapons that Nick has and needed to commit. He probably needed five preseasons to even get close to the Murrays and Djokovics."
Hewitt refused to buy into a question that Australian tennis was "fundamentally broken," pointing to the success stories at the Open, including Alexei Popyrin and Alex Bolt who earlier Thursday advanced to the third round.
"I look at Alex de Minaur, Bolt, Popyrin, what Millman did at the US Open, there's a lot of good stories too," Hewitt said. "There's one clown making a silly comment and it's making the news. We have exceptional players doing exceptional things."