LESS than two months on from finally letting the curtain fall on his long, exhausting career, Lleyton Hewitt jumped back onto stage at the first chance for an encore.

In his debut as the Australian Davis Cup captain, Hewitt called his own number and put himself onto the four-man team for the first round tie against the United States this weekend. With Nick Kyrgios ruled out, Hewitt stepped in, and put himself into the doubles rubber.

Without much visible rust compared to his January form, Hewitt played capably enough, and he and John Peers were able to force the recently sputtering Bryan brothers into a fifth set before valiantly falling 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3.

There is one more day of Davis Cup play left, and with the Aussies trailing 2-1, both matches are of the utmost importance. And if he wants to give himself the best chance of reaching the quarterfinals in his captaining debut, the game plan is simple for Hewitt: keep himself on the sidelines.

Lleyton Hewitt performs a familiar celebration after winning a point i Source: AAP

Even though it ended in defeat, the doubles gambit was a solid one: Hewitt has played much better in doubles than singles in recent years, and his stepping in allowed Sam Groth a day of rest before playing singles again.

That needs to be it. Still, after the match, Hewitt maintained his typically high opinion of his own abilities, and didn’t rule out choosing himself for a shot at heroism in Sunday’s fifth rubber, if Bernard Tomic is able to level the tie with a win over John Isner in the first match.

“I didn’t doubt myself at all,” Hewitt said of his play today.

And therein lies the problem. As an objective coach, looking at the available options to play on Sunday, Hewitt should significantly doubt his own chances of winning a decisive singles match.

Hewitt’s belief has outpaced his physical abilities for years now, but at this point the evidence is stronger than ever. He has not beaten a top 100 player since August 2014. In that same stretch, Groth has 17 top-100 scalps to his name.

Lleyton Hewitt gets a backhand volley away as teammate John Peers ducks. Source: AP

Hewitt has also proven especially unreliable in the best-of-five format: dating back to the 2010 U.S. Open, Hewitt has won only two of his last 13 five-setters. More painfully, nearly all of those losses have come down to mental lapses rather than physical attrition, with comebacks falling short due to loose service games or untimely double faults.

Admittedly, the arguments against Hewitt are more persuasive than the arguments for Groth. The big-server has had a nightmarish start to the 2016 season, only winning one match (albeit a quality victory over Adrian Mannarino at the Australian Open). But most convincingly, his one previous match against likely opponent Jack Sock was a win on the grass of Wimbledon last year, an emphatic 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 dismissal as the American was unnerved by Groth’s big serve and the vocal Australian fans in attendance.

Hewitt knows how vulnerable Sock has been on grass, and might like his own odds even more having beaten Sock at Hopman Cup this year, which will be fresh in his memory. But even Kyrgios, who triumphed at the event for Australia, admitted shortly after in Melbourne that results at Hopman Cup weren’t much to be read into, with most men in the event giving half-hearted efforts.

Hewitt needs to be able to contextualise that result, and indeed his form of the past several years, and make the team-oriented choice to stay on the bench. His greatest strength, his self-belief, could prove selfish if he over-estimates himself at the cost of Australia.

It’s not an easy moment for Hewitt, to be sure. World TeamTennis, the American mini-league which pops up each summer, instituted a ban on player-coaches after finding that coaches who had the option of picking themselves to play did so too much, to the detriment of their team’s success. No such rule exists in Davis Cup, but Hewitt might benefit from one.

Sam Groth watches Australia’s Davis Cup doubles match against the USA. Source: AAP

To make himself the best coach possible, it’s time to take a step back, and let a rested Groth, who looks to be an integral part of this team for years to come, do his best. Groth may well fall short himself, but that should be a much easier result for Hewitt to live with than an act of self-interest which could start his tenure on the bench off on the wrong foot.

Ben Rothenberg is a contributing writer for the New York Times and Fox Sports Australia