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Tennis legend Ken Rosewall says Bernard Tomic is accomplished enough to play at the Australian Open without a wildcard and has urged the prodigy to move on from the disputes that have diverted attention from his burgeoning game.
Tomic, who was ousted in the first round of the Sydney International on Wednesday, was criticised in some circles before receiving a third consecutive wildcard into next week’s Australian Open after he’d withdrawn from the wildcard play-off event citing illness.
That came after previous controversial incidents for the talented teen including a dispute about late scheduling of a 2010 Australian Open match and his fall out with Australian No.1 Lleyton Hewitt over an alleged practise match snub at Wimbledon.
“There has been a little bit of not animosity, but conflict in regards to Bernard’s relationship with different tennis authorities – so hopefully all that will settle down,” Rosewall, an eight-time grand slam winner, told AAP.
“The thing with Lleyton Hewitt carried on for several months – that wasn’t good for him.
“He’s (Tomic) in a position now that he should realise he’s got that potential to improve and work with the other boys in the (Australian) team.
“There’s a lot of good young players in that junior area so maybe they can feed off each other.”
Tomic said he was happy with his form in Sydney, where he won through the qualifying event to the main draw before losing to world No.49 Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-7 (7-3) 6-1 6-2 in a match that had been locked at a set apiece on Tuesday before rain stopped play.
The world No.209 agreed with TA’s head men’s coach Todd Woodbridge that he “hadn’t done enough” to warrant an Open wildcard before a hot run through qualifying in Sydney.
But now he felt vindicated.
“Look, it’s their (Tennis Australia’s) decision at the end of the day. I can’t decide if I’m going to get it (a wildcard) or not. I can only do and try to play tennis as much as I can,” Tomic said.
“Yes, I had a bit of a strange December (not playing), but now it’s January; I played three good matches here.
“I’ve actually beaten three top 100s in a row, and I think this is confidence for me leading into next week.
“I think the wildcard that they gave, they gave for a reason – obviously saw I was playing well here.”
In other action on Wednesday, Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro lost to German Florian Mayer 6-2 7-5.
The 2009 US Open champion still looms as a dangerous floater at the Australian Open, though, showing enough in Sydney to suggest his power game is coming back after almost a year off the circuit with a wrist injury.
Much-improved Latvian Ernests Gulbis earned a quarter-final match-up with Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky on Thursday while Frenchman Richard Gasquet will play Serb Viktor Troicki.
Italian Potito Starace and Gilles Simon also advanced to the last eight.
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