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SYDNEY - Former world tennis number one Pat Rafter has revealed he turned down an offer to coach Lleyton Hewitt after the Australian was dumped last week by Roger Rasheed.
Rafter told Sydney's Daily Telegraph today that Hewitt called on Friday and asked him to coach him during the Australian Open, starting in Melbourne on January 15.
But Rafter said he could not take the job because of his own family commitments.
"I did think about helping out Lleyton but it was impossible," Rafter told the paper. "I won't be in Melbourne for the Open because we're moving house and I can't get around it."
Hewitt announced on Monday that he given the job to his former Davis Cup team mate Scott Draper on a part-time basis.
Draper was a tennis professional for more than a decade, reaching a career-high ranking of 42 and winning the 2005 Australian Open mixed doubles title with Samantha Stosur. He quit tennis two years ago to become a professional golfer.
Draper has pulled out of the Victorian PGA because it clashes with the Australian Open but told the Sydney Morning Herald he had no intention of quitting golf.
"Obviously, it's an emerging situation and I'm just playing a coaching and support role for him," Draper said.
"It's just for now; there's no talk other than that. I'm still very much committed to, and enjoying, my golf."
Rasheed announced last week he was leaving Hewitt because he could no longer work with him. Australian newspapers reported the split followed an ugly row at the Adelaide International after Hewitt was eliminated by world number 94 Igor Kunitsyn of Russia.
Rasheed took over as Hewitt's coach in 2003 when Jason Stoltenberg quit two weeks before he was due to defend his Wimbledon title.
Stoltenberg had been in the job for just 18 months after replacing Darren Cahill, who guided Hewitt from a teenager to world number one and the 2001 US Open title.
- REUTERS