Hewitt and Tomic have not spoken since the incident, confirmed yesterday by Hewitt's manager David Drysdale and considered by a furious Hewitt to be a lack of respect.

Tennis Australia's tennis director Craig Tiley said yesterday he was aware that Tomic's father, John, who recently asked TA to spend vast sums on his son, had declined the practice invitation on his son's behalf on Wimbledon's middle Sunday, as Hewitt prepared for his fourth-round match and Tomic to contest the junior event.

But it has been neither forgotten nor forgiven, with Drysdale describing as ''interesting'' any scenario in which the pair was selected in the Davis Cup squad for Australia's first tie next year.

''I don't think Bernard should expect much from Lleyton, that's for sure,'' Drysdale said. ''To say that we were less than impressed would be an understatement.''

As Team Hewitt tells it, several phone calls were made to Tomic, his father and an IMG agent on the Saturday evening, asking if Tomic would hit at 1pm the following day.

There was no response, but the 16-year-old was present when Hewitt arrived to practise, his physiotherapist Ivan Gutierrez making the approach to the Tomic entourage.

''We turned up and saw the Tomics around and we thought, 'Oh, maybe they got our message, and they were there to hit with Lleyton','' Drysdale said, ''so Ivan went over to Bernard's trainer at the time, Rudy [Sopko] and said 'Is Bernard here to hit?'. Rudy knew nothing of it but said 'Look, Bernard's looking for a practice partner and I think Bernard would like to do it', but then the agent came in and said, 'No, he's not hitting with Lleyton, Lleyton's not good enough'.

''They were his words: 'Lleyton's not good enough' and we just about dropped on the spot. We were pretty dumbfounded. Lleyton just could not believe it, and the more he thought about it the angrier he got about it.''

Salting the wound was a subsequent conversation with Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero at courtside. ''Ivan asked if he was available to practise at one o'clock and Juan Carlos said, 'No, no, I've got a practice partner, but that young Australian kid Tomic, he just came and asked me to hit, why don't you ask him?','' Drysdale said.

''Then we told Juan Carlos what had happened and his coach said that if a leading player in Spain asked a junior to practise and the junior said no, that he would never get to hit with a senior player again, they would make sure he had all his funding and support from the national federation cut and that he would be, in the coach's words, 'strung up from a tree by his balls'.''