Love him or loathe him, has there been an Australian athlete with a bigger heart and will to win than Lleyton Hewitt?
He has polarised his fellow Australians in the decade-and-a-half since he announced himself as a future star by winning the title in his hometown of Adelaide as a teenager, winning over just as many fans with his fierce desire to win as those that he put off with his on-court behaviour.
But nearing 31 and clearly winding down to the end of his career as his body starts to fail him, the dual Grand Slam champion turned in one of his gutsiest displays in driving world No.1 Novak Djokovic to distraction in their Australian Open fourth-round meeting on Monday night.
And many of the people who have disliked him over the years have actually started to come around, perhaps because he is getting closer to retirement but undoubtedly because of the way he yet again defied expectations and got everything out of himself and then some this fortnight.
Now given it would be unlikely he could return in 12 months' time and match this performance, what better way for him to end his unrequited love affair with Melbourne Park than to confirm this was his final attempt to claim the major title he coveted above all others?
Coming off a sublime 2011, Djokovic is at the peak of his powers and entered the match against the veteran local hope in devastating touch, the defending champion having conceded only 10 games in ousting Italian Paolo Lorenzi, Colombian Santiago Giraldo and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut.
On the other side of the net was Hewitt, who had a 2011 season ruined by injury and who was coming off wins over German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, injured American Andy Roddick and rising Canadian star Milos Raonic.
Just like was the case ahead of his clash with Roddick, the American No.15 seed who was brought undone by a hamstring strain, Hewitt was given little chance of threatening the Serbian top seed let alone taking a set off him.
And those expectations looked to be well on the money when Hewitt was broken in each of his first five service games, but there was a hint of what was to come just the same as he broke once in both the first and second sets.
And then from nowhere as he found himself down a break in the third set he turned the momentum 180 degrees to fight back on level terms and then force a fourth set, reviving memories of his greatest comeback of all, his epic five-set Davis Cup semi-final defeat of Roger Federer in 2003.
Alas he was unable to replicate those heroics as Djokovic eventually put down his valiant challenge with the only break of the fourth set to confirm the 6-1 6-3 4-6 6-3 win in a tick under three hours.
When he does eventually hang up his racquet Hewitt will continue to rue the one that got away at Melbourne Park, having taken a set off Marat Safin in the final seven years ago only to be overrun by the Russian powerhouse.
But he will look back just as fondly at his 2001 US Open and 2002 Wimbledon triumphs, the long spell he had as world No.1 and the pair of winning Davis Cup teams he played in, and he'll surely have at least earned the grudging respect virtually all of his fellow Australians along the way.