Hewitt reignites fine row, says ATP lied

World number one Lleyton Hewitt vigorously stoked his row with the organisers of professional men's tennis on Tuesday by branding the ATP liars.

"The ATP people were lying," said the 21-year-old Australian at the U.S. Open when asked of his feud with the governing body over a fine imposed earlier this month.

"It was always 'ATP spokesperson' ... no one ever wanted to put their name to it. I think a lot of people lied, I think that is a known fact," he said.

Hewitt was handed a $103,000 fine in Cincinnati earlier this month -- half his runners-up prize money -- for refusing to conduct an interview with host broadcasters ESPN before his first round match.

The player said he had told the ATP he would attend the interview "just to get it all out of the way", but that nobody had got back to his coach Jason Stoltenberg until it was too late and a fine was inevitable.

"You know, I didn't really want to come out and make a big deal of it," said the top seed after sweeping past Frenchman Nicolas Coutelot 6-2 6-3 6-3 in the first round in New York.

"But it was all one-sided coming out ... it was just absolute lies coming out.

"I felt I was copping the brunt of it and the ATP was just sort of riding the wave. There were so many guys just making up stories just to ... save their jobs, I guess."

BADLY-RUN "CIRCUS"

Hewitt said earlier this month he was annoyed by the ATP's attitude over the ESPN incident because he had already agreed with the broadcasters to do the interview after the match.

"ESPN was satisfied with that," said Hewitt at the time. "(ATP chief executive) Mark Miles was satisfied with that and the tournament director was satisfied with that but there was one guy, the PR manager, who wasn't.

"When things happen like in Cincinnati, when you think about the way everything has been run, it's just not much fun," added the Australian, who is appealing against the fine.

Hewitt called the governing body of men's tennis a badly-run "circus" and said he could in future ignore ATP rules governing how many tournaments a player is obliged to compete in and that he would play where, and when, he wanted, regardless of what that would mean to his ranking.

"There are times when you feel like (walking away)...it is a great sport if the ATP would just get out of the way," he said.

On Tuesday, he cranked up the row.

Explaining his annoyance, and why the row developed, he said: "It was basically about the timing of the whole situation, when they notified me ... the whole little details they put into it, which tries to make their story a lot stronger.

"Where in the end, it's basically just crap."