A secret out-of-court settlement on Tuesday averted a second day in an Australian court for out-of-sorts tennis ace Lleyton Hewitt.
On Monday the multimillionaire had skipped training to engage in a legal tussle with a Sydney Harbour cruise operator he says invaded his privacy by taking snaps of his December 2004 jaunt on the waterway with future wife and television soap star Bec Cartwright.
The cruise company had sued over an unpaid bill of 3 971 Australian dollars ($2 975) for food, drinks and the hire of the boat. Hewitt (24) and Cartwright (21) counter-sued, claiming the cruise operator had invaded their privacy by giving snaps of the couple to a newspaper.
Photographs mean money to the Hewitts: they have sold exclusive rights to pictures of their life together to Women’s Weekly magazine for Aus$1-million ($750 000).
The couple wed last year at a private ceremony in the Sydney Opera House and have a baby whose likeness is only available to the public in the pages of Women’s Weekly.
In court, a lawyer for the Hewitts claimed the cruise operator had robbed them of the money they could have made out of the harbour cruise photographs.
Hewitt, a former world number one, has lost form recently and was bundled out in the second round at last month’s Australian Open in Melbourne. – Sapa-DPA