How a soap star and Australian tennis legend became the country's golden couple: Bec and Lleyton Hewitt's relationship in pictures
Rebecca and Lleyton Hewitt are Australia's answer to Posh and Becks.
The notoriously private couple will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary this year.
Bec met the Aussie tennis champion and former world no.1 when she was known to us all as Bec Cartwright.
It was a match made in heaven when they got together in the early to mid-2000s: a leading sports star and a Home and Away actress turned singer and one of the biggest names in the country at the time.
After meeting at tennis charity match as teens to reconnecting years later to forge a love story for the ages, 9honey takes a look back at their love story in pictures that continues to play out in front of the world even today – at the theatre.
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Before Bec found her happily ever with tennis star Lleyton Hewitt, the Home and Away actress dated co-star Beau Brady, who played Noah on the long-running soap.
Bec reportedly ended their engagement in 2004, after having dated for four years.
It just wasn't meant to be for the pair.
"I look back at it now and realise proposing to Bec was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made," Brady told Woman's Day.
Bec and Lleyton first met as teenagers at the at the Starlight Cup, but only reconnected years later once her relationship with Brady ended.
In fact, around the time Bec started dating Lleyton, she was one of Australia's biggest stars and had even launched her solo music career in 2002.
She's pictured in the official music video for her catchy hit All Seats Taken.
The exact dates of the early days of their relationship are unclear, but it was after their respective splits.
They are pictured here at a party in 2004, a year before they tied the knot.
"We didn't speak for six years," Bec recently told Stellar.
"It was only when both of our relationships had broken up [that] he eventually touched base in a text message to tell me something he was working on."
Lleyton, the former world No. 1, previously dated Belgian tennis star Kim Clijsters before finding love with Bec.
He and Clijsters were even engaged at one point before calling things off.
By 2005, it was on – and a real, game, set, love match!
The pair, who attended the Logie Awards together that year, fell hard and fast for one another.
2005 was a big year for the couple and they celebrated some happy news, announcing their engagement after six weeks of publicly dating.
In May that year they revealed they were expecting their first child and in July, they married in a fairytale wedding at the Sydney Opera House.
As reported by Punkee, Bec wrote her own poem that she read out at their wedding.
''Rebecca Hewitt! I'm your wife, I promise you one thing, stick with me and you'll have a bloody good life!'' one line read.
"It wasn't' til late in 2004, that I received another phone call, when we decided to meet, we went up the street for something to eat."
Some of her Home and Away co-stars were in the bridal party, including Ada Nicodemou and Kate Ritchie.
They reportedly had 180 guests in attendance at the lavish event. The reception was held at Taronga Zoo.
In 2005, Bec was right by Lleyton's side as he competed in matches and became one of Australia's best players in the history of the game.
She told Stellar the early days of their romance was like a "whirlwind".
"By the time of the Aussie Open we both knew we wanted to spend our lives together, and look at us now!" she added about her marriage.
"Some media have been scathing about our engagement. But I make my own decisions and do what's best for my life," she reportedly told The Sunday Telegraph after they announced their engagement so soon.
"You need to be true to yourself and I am. So it's simple – this is what's right for me."
In 2005, the pair welcomed their first child together, daughter Mia, who is now 19.
Bec took daughter Mia to watch her tennis star father at the Davis Cup in Townsville in 2008.
That same year, they welcomed son Cruz, 16, who is now following in his famous father's tennis footsteps.
During their time together, the couple lived in the Bahamas, but recently moved back to their native Australia to put down roots in Melbourne and now Sydney.
"I love her so much and we have a great life together, and she produced three fantastic kids," Lleyton once told the Herald Sun.
"She really is my soulmate, and we go through absolutely everything together. I couldn't be prouder to have Bec alongside me."
Speaking to The Australian Women's Weekly about their family life, Bec said she only relaxes when she's at home with her husband.
"I find it really hard to unwind. The only time I really unwind or relax is when Lleyton is home. We enjoy sitting and watching TV together."
"Happy anniversary to my gorgeous wife Bec you've made it the most amazing 12 years ever!" the tennis star wrote back in 2017 underneath this snap of the pair together at the beach.
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