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Hall of Shame: Tennis Australia's embarrassing Tomic typo

13th July, 2015
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An embarrassed Tennis Australia has apologised for a “typo” that said controversial star Bernard Tomic is due to play at the “Hall of Shame Tennis Championships”.

Ten days after Tomic was stood down from this week’s Davis Cup quarter-final against Kazakhstan for his explosive attack on TA officials, the organisation sent out the unflattering description of his upcoming tournament in Newport, Rhode Island when listing his first round match up against countryman John-Patrick Smith.

TA’s daily emailed report of local players’ performances and appearances around the world labelled the event the “Hall of Shame Tennis Championships” instead of its real name, the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.

After the original email went out just before 10.30am on Monday, TA sent a revised email of the fixtures with the correct tournament name, before promptly issuing an apology.

“Sincere apologies for typo in our results service today, has now been corrected. Good luck to both #Tomic & #JPSmith,” Tennis Australia tweeted.

TA then followed up with an explanation which described the blunder as a “simple clerical error”.

“Tennis Australia sincerely apologises for the typo in the daily results service today,” it said in a statement.

This has now been corrected and we wish both Bernard Tomic and JP Smith all the best in the Hall of Fame Championships in Newport.

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“This unfortunate error has been widely circulated on social media and there is some discussion as to how such a mistake could occur.

“We have a very upset staff member who made a simple clerical error.

“The result listing before the Hall of Fame Championships, the Sharm El Sheikh event in Egypt, won by Astra Sharma, should provide some explanation as to how this error occurred. There was no malicious intent.”

Tomic is only competing in the US tournament because he was kicked out of Australia’s Davis Cup squad over his “unacceptable” criticism of TA officials including Pat Rafter and CEO Craig Tiley following his third-round Wimbledon exit.

Among other claims during his 10-minute tirade, Tomic accused the governing body of abandoning him after he underwent double hip surgery last year and that Rafter, TA’s director of player performance, was merely a “mask” for Tiley and had no idea how to control the budget for player funding.

TA president Steve Healy said the allegations were “misinformed and untrue”.

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