Wednesday 18 January 2012

Tennis Balls: Training with Tomic

Photobucket

Bernard Tomic, only 19 and such a cutie-pie, is the highest ranked Aussie on the men's tour and is the youngest player in the Top 100.



Photobucket
Bernard Tomic shows much... promise.

Photobucket
Indeed.
(Hey, does the beefcake behind Bernie have some tennis balls in his pants, too?)


His best Grand Slam finish so far is a 2011 Wimbledon quarterfinals victory in straight sets over Robin Soderling before losing to eventual champ Novak Djokovic.

From the looks of things, let's hope for a long and colourful career from this boy. This is what our friends from Wikipedia have to say:

In September 2009, reports began to surface about Tomic's team rejecting an invitational practice session with Lleyton Hewitt during the middle Sunday of Wimbledon. Hewitt's manager David Drysdale stated:

"We turned up and saw the Tomics around and we thought 'oh, maybe they got our message, and they were there to hit with Lleyton'. So Ivan (Gutierrez, Hewitt's physio) went over to Bernard's trainer at the time, Rudy (Sopko) and said 'Is Bernard here to hit?'. Rudy knew nothing of it but said 'Look, Bernard's looking for a practice partner and I think Bernard would like to do it', but then the agent came in and said, 'No, he's not hitting with Lleyton, Lleyton's not good enough'. They were his words: 'Lleyton's not good enough' and we just about dropped on the spot. We were pretty dumbfounded. Lleyton just could not believe it, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got about it."

Bernard Tomic's team cited Hewitt's different playing style as the reason for turning down the practice offer. He was later seen requesting for a practice hit with former world number 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, but was subsequently turned down. A few weeks later Tomic revealed that he was forced to turn away the opportunity due to his own infection with swine flu. He further denied any approach to Ferrero as an alternative hitting partner, despite the Spanish tennis player's claim.


***


Our favourite vintage, Pat Cash, also gets in on the action. Here's a section of his chat about Bernard Tomic, with Triple M Melbourne's The Hot Breakfast with Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy, on the first day of the 2012 Australian Open:

McGuire: He's on the front page of the paper today, 'Tomic's Secret Weapon', how's he going?

Cash: He's got a big weapon mate, I've seen him in the locker room, that's all I can say.

Molloy: He can't approach the net.

Cash: He can measure it though... 



//     O.o     //