‘It’s the only thing I’m good at’: Inside Bernard Tomic’s long and lonely road back to top-flight tennis

Wimbledon has its pristine grass courts primed for next week and Bernie Tomic, whose first big breakthrough came in London 14 years ago, is back!

Well, sort of.

As a sextet of Aussies begin their bid to qualify for the world’s most prestigious tournament on Monday night, the one-time prodigy is preparing for his first tour level match in more than four years.

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The Queenslander will not be at Wimbledon this year mixing it up with defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and company after narrowly missing the cut-off for the qualifying event that is played a few kilometres from the main stage at Roehampton.

But rather than sitting on his heels hoping for some peers to withdraw from Wimbledon qualifying, the one-time boy wonder picked up his racquets and headed for the sun in Spain.

Tomic has been the target of much derision and criticism during a career that dates back to 2008. A degree of it has been deserved but a portion has also been unfair.

But for a player who has been called out for tanking at times — the 28 minute blink-and-you-miss-it nightmare in Miami back in 2014 was a nightmare — the grizzled veteran deserves a nod for getting back to work.

Far away from the big stages of sport, Tomic has been cracking in on tour backwaters in a bid to break back into the top 100 and return to the grand slam stages in Melbourne, Paris, London and New York.

An opportunity awaits to take a significant step towards that mark on the grass courts of Rafael Nadal’s home island of Mallorca this week after the 32-year-old qualified for his first ATP Tour level event since the Australian Open in 2021.

From big-time boasts about his ability and earnings to losing motivation and hitting the “party zone” in his mid-20s, Tomic has regained his fitness and is becoming tougher to beat.

Bernard Tomic is still playing tennis and finding wins on his way back to the top level. Source: FOX SPORTS

Over the weekend he defeated Jasper De Jong, a Dutchman ranked 93 who recently won a round at the French Open, and then Aleksandar Kovacevic, an American who sits at 77, to qualify for an event where the winner pockets $162,000.

The prize is a first round meeting against his compatriot Rinky Hijikata, a hard-working Aussie ranked 88 who reached the last 16 at the US Open a couple of years ago.

If the Gold Coaster happens to win that match, he will jump to a spot just outside the top 200, which would put him in the frame to play in qualifying for the US Open in New York in late August.

A slot back in the Big Apple, the city where dreams are made and broken, would be fitting for a tennis player who has ridden the rollercoaster of the sport for much of his life.

THE RISE AND FALL OF BERNARD TOMIC

Any Aussie unaware of the Queenslander’s topsy-turvy career would have to have their head in the sand given Tomic’s propensity for headline grabbing behaviour during his career between the baselines and beyond it.

It started way back in his early teens when, while indisputably a phenomenon in junior ranks, he reeled off the big names in the sport in declaring the track he felt he was on.

“I still need to find the serve of Ivanisevic and the groundstrokes of Federer. I’m halfway there with the mind of Sampras. I’ve already got the heart of Lleyton,” he told Inside Sport.

“I love all the competition in tennis, the battles, the winning, coming back when no-one thinks you can, like Lleyton. Even when I’m not playing for a few weeks when I have a holiday, I feel so hungry to come back and win tournaments.”

That interview was back in late 2006, not long after he had won the prestigious Orange Bowl junior event in Florida.

Not long after Pat Rafter, John Newcombe and Tony Roche watched him in a junior match at the Australian Open, a year prior to Tomic becoming the youngest player to win the event in 2008.

Blessed with beautiful touch and the brain to work the angles on court, he also won the boys event at the US Open in successes that inspired sponsors like Nike and Head to sign him, while also earning him representation from behemoth agency IMG.

This journalist first talked to Tomic in 2008 after a narrow loss in a Futures event in Gippsland to Nick Lindahl, another talent who was later banned for seven years on match fixing charges.

Tomic was chatty and happy to discuss his hopes. His dad John? Less so, judging by an interaction on returning to the club house afterwards. That one did not make the headlines but other altercations did over the years following as his son strove for greatness.

Tomic’s best run at a grand slam came at Wimbledon in 2011 when he became the youngest player since Boris Becker in 1986 to reach the quarterfinals. There he fell to Novak Djokovic in four sets.

Later that year he played alongside Lleyton Hewitt in an epic Davis Cup tie in Rose Bay in Sydney against a Switzerland team featuring Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka.

He won the Sydney International in 2013 along with other ATP Tour titles in Italy, China and Colombia. He reached quarterfinals at Masters events and finals at ATP 500 level.

In January, 2016, he peaked at an ATP ranking of 17. That ranking is not as high as many, including Tomic, predicted. But during a golden period, he broke into the top 20 and featured in second weeks of grand slam tournaments.

For all the critics who have dumped on Tomic, it is worth reiterating he was the 17th best tennis player in the world at a point in time on merit. He has played 37 grand slam tournaments. It is a decent career.

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As to the controversies? Man, oh man. Where to begin? How about back in 2009 at Wimbledon when his agent told Hewitt he was not good enough to hit with Tomic, who was just 16?

Or the time where his dad blasted Tennis Australia officials for scheduling a night match past his bedtime? That, to be fair, was at the minor end of some of John Tomic’s sins.

Tomic was pulled up three times in one day by Gold Coast police for traffic breaches and was placed on a Good Behaviour Bond for other incidents while driving flashy cars in the Sunshine State.

He carried Davis Cup teams at times and was dumped on other occasions for a poor attitude. He pissed it up big-time in Miami and got himself arrested, teed off at a journalist after a poor US Open loss, berated Hewitt and got into a war of words with Nick Kyrgios.

Tomic tanked matches, was booed off courts and received some hefty fines. As recently as last August, he was heckling rivals from a grandstand after a Challenger tour loss.

To suggest he has had a colourful career would be an understatement.

But even after all the drama, when journalists bumped him into at events, he would be quick to ask about someone’s kids, or make a quip about something that had happened on court.

Was he treated unfairly while at the top? Even Tomic was not prepared to go that far in a recent chat on tennis podcast The Changeover when assessing how his career has been covered, particularly at a time when it seemed he was in court as often as he was on court.

“I mean, the Australian media is probably the worst media in the world. Don’t get me wrong, I did stuff, for sure, that did provoke it. I wasn’t the smartest guy in the town,” he said.

“The media, at the end of the day, want to sell papers. No-one’s going to wake up and want to read something good about someone. They want to read something bad and stuff. So if they have any … any sort of little flame to pick on, they can, because they know that’s going to sell.

“Obviously I did stuff that was, for sure, not right. I didn’t do a lot of things on court that were wrong with referees and this … but I would let go sometimes and tank and not be there. I’m sure many players have done some stuff throughout these last 10 years.

“I probably didn’t do it the right way … and they did pick on me a little bit of the time, the media, but it’s not like I have an issue with them.”

ENTERING THE “PARTY ZONE”

What went wrong? In his recent chat with The Changeover, Tomic highlighted a few threads that will scarcely surprise as his ranking plummeted to beyond the 1200 mark in 2023.

Injuries were a factor. The 28-minute nightmare in the Miami Masters against Jarkko Niemennen followed a hip surgery in 2014 that required three months rehabilitation.

He endured wrist and back problems in 2016, issues that have derailed more accomplished players than himself including Juan Martin del Potro, a rival whose talent he clearly rates.

And there was burnout, which will surprise no-one. Tomic admits he did not have the maturity to deal with the fame, the expectations and the commitment in his early 20s.

“I sort of let go. I just lost the hunger,” he said.

“How can I say it? Obviously I worked really hard when I was young. I missed my childhood, whatever, but then it got to the stage where, how can I say it, I didn’t feel fulfilled. Even winning on the court, I just wanted to be normal. The travelling? Man, it destroyed me at 24.

“Now compared to who I was 10 years ago. I see things differently and react differently (but) tennis is a very isolated, very tough sport. You’re travelling on your own. You’ve got to give up your whole life. You’re not surrounded by a team (and) you’re on your own. You lose. You’re on your own. You go back to the room, feeling bad, being alone, away from friends, away from family.”

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From free-wheeling in fast and furious cars in his early 20s, by the time Covid-19 hit Tomic was committed to the circuit. The problem for his career was that it was the party circuit.

“I didn’t train a lot, honestly, from 26 to 28. During the Covid period, I partied heaps. There was nothing to do except party, you know,” he told The Changeover.

“There was nothing to do. And prior to those two years, I was already, like, mucking around partying. So it was like a three year party zone.

“(But then) I was like, ‘Okay, I’ve got one more shot at tennis. I better get back.’ It took me like, a year, and a year and a half to get my fitness back. I would play a match and I was, like, dead.”

THE LONG ROAD BACK

For a bloke who was burned out and candidly admits he is past his prime, Tomic understands why people might be asking why he is out on back blocks grinding away.

It has been a while since his infamous “counting my millions” quote after an Aussie Open qualifying loss, but the 32-year-old has earned more than A$10 million in prize money, and also have benefited from lucrative sponsorships and appearance fees earlier in his career.

Partying can be expensive and so, too, the lifestyle associated with being a tennis player.

But Tomic had a realisation. He may not love it, but he was damned good at tennis and it is the only life he has ever really known.

Over the past 12 months Tomic has bounced from the US to South America and back to America. He has played matches in Calgary and Noumea, Pune and Mexico City.

And it has been tough. While Tomic is adamant the top 10 in his prime were better — he played the Big 4 and other big names in prime time outings — he says the depth is stronger than ever on the tour, with rivals ranked down to the 500s outstanding in their own right.

Changes in the amount of points offered at lower levels have made it harder to climb back to where he wants to get to, which is the top 100. That would give him entry back into grand slams and the top tier events on the tour.

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“Tennis has become part of my life ever since I was seven. Obviously I had a dad that pushed me extremely hard and that’s one of the reasons I got there, in a sense,” he said.

“But when you look at this whole picture, now that I’m 32, it’s a purpose. It still gives me something to do. Without tennis, I don’t know what I would do.

“I’m sitting about 200 in the world, or whatever, and my goal is to be top 100 and … and then I can retire. It’s more of a statement, that sort of thing, so let’s see if I can do it.

“But the whole sort of sense (that) you’ve got to find your purpose, something that gets you going now that you’re older, you want something to give. And it’s about tennis.

“It’s the only thing I’m good at. I’ve been good at it for almost three decades, so it gets me going. I can still play decent. I’m not in my prime like I was … but that’s why I’m challenging myself to get back there one more time. And then (I can) retire happy (and) guilt free.”

Can Bernie get back? De Jong and Kovacevic, the blokes he beat on the weekend, will be playing at Wimbledon next week, and so too will Hijikata and much of the Mallorca draw headed by American star Ben Shelton and Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Making the jump from 200 to 100 is as tough as coming back from beyond 1200 a couple of years back to get to where he is now. And a bad back that flares on occasion will make it tougher. But if he can continue a winning run this week, Tomic Mark II will be on his way.

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