Nick Kyrgios has gained an unlikely ally in the battle for Australian hearts – former tennis bad-boy turned respectable citizen Lleyton Hewitt.

Kyrgios has burst onto the tennis scene in the past 18 months, but the attention looked to be getting to the Canberran throughout the French Open and Wimbledon.

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He repeatedly became embroiled in controversies with officials, appeared to tank a game in a Wimbledon loss to Richard Gasquet, and carried his poor form into Australia’s Davis Cup tie with Kazakhstan.

Now Kyrgios’ mother has revealed Hewitt will mentor the 20-year-old star in the lead-up to this year’s US Open.

“He will listen to Lleyton because he knows what he’s talking about, he’s been at the top and been world No. 1,” Nill Kyrgios told the Canberra Times.

“What Nick doesn’t like is when people who haven’t been in that situation give him advice, but he’ll listen to someone like Lleyton.

“Lleyton’s been through everything that Nick is going through.

“We touched base on it after Davis Cup because we knew Nick wasn’t in a good head space, he just wasn’t dealing well with the negative feedback.”