Quo vadis, Bernard Tomic?
So far, Bernard Tomic has had a mixed start to the season. The Australian won only two of his seven matches. Some of the defeats went at a rapid pace.
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Feb 19, 2020, 05:12 pm
69 minutes, 44 minutes, 39 minutes: When Bernard Tomic was on the pitch in 2020, he usually couldn't ask for an overtime surcharge. The Australian was able to win two of his seven matches this season, but if one opponent turned out to be tough, you could usually count on a very brisk affair. In the second round of qualification for the Delray Beach Open, the 28-year-old offered his opponent, Ernests Gulbis, somewhat patience in the first round, but set two let the enfant terrible pass in just 18 minutes.
In the same second sentence, there was another scandal on the part of the Australian bad boy. At the standings of 0: 2 and 0:40 on their own serve, opponent Ernests Gulbis tried a stop ball, which was given out by the linesman. However, Tomic had already stopped and played the ball profitably over the net. However, the Australian thought he saw his Latvian opponent's stop ball in the field and did not intervene when the referee awarded the point to the Latvian. The 28-year-old didn't seem to care that Tomic was entitled to a repetition of the point - he had already made himself comfortable on the bench.
Bernard Tomic once again proved in this match what lack of attitude and commitment make a fundamentally talented player. That's why it is all the more curious that Bernard Tomic, who scored just three points in set two against Gulbis, was able to move into the main draw of Delray Beach's ATP 250 event when Lucky Loser. Tenny Sandgren had to withdraw from the start of the tournament in the USA due to a knee injury.
Trend reversal by moving into the main field?
Bernard Tomic, who advanced to 17th place in the world rankings in 2016, currently only ranks 197th in the ATP ranking. For him it was the first appearance in an ATP tour main field since August 2019. In Delray Beach he now met the German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe. In the head-to-head, Bernard Tomic was 1-0 in the front before the game, but the last duel dates from 2012 when the two faced each other in the Davis Cup. And the unexpected entry into the peloton seemed to have motivated Bernard Tomic, since the Australian had virtues that he had missed over the past few weeks.
Instead of giving up the game early after Cedrik-Marcel Stebe's set win, the 28-year-old seemed to have regained his will to fight. Round two went 6: 3 to the Australian. In the end Cedric-Marcel Stebe prevailed in three sentences, but it was once again a little ray of hope from Bernard Tomic.