January has arrived and with it come most of the top tennis players for the first major of the year. I say most, because it seems every year a few cannot make it due to not yet having recovered from an off season injury/surgery. February Australian Open anyone?
This time of the year also brings with it the annual ‘stuff an Australian player down the public’s throat’ campaign.
In recent years, as will be the case again this year, the participants are Sam Stosur, Bernard Tomic and Lleyton Hewitt.
Sure Stosur has won a grand slam title and been a runner up in another, Hewitt has two grand slam titles on his resume and has two runner ups thrown in and Tomic, well he won at schoolies.
But does anyone outside of Channel Seven actually believe any of those three are capable of winning this tournament?
Since she won the US Open in 2011, Stosur followed up in 2012 by losing in round one at the Australian Open and round two at the US Open.
In 2013, well the less said about her 2013 form the better, needless to say she won just a few more matches on the tour than I did.
She also suffers from the extremely rare condition of not being able to play well in front of her compatriots, for this there is no cure.
As for Lley Lley, he hasn’t won a Grand Slam tournament since 2002 (yes, that was seven months short of 12 years ago for those counting). And it is fair to say he hasn’t been competing for Grand Slam titles since 2006.
Bernard Tomic has a total of one quarter final appearance at a Slam, but will have as many headlines, promos and articles written about him then anyone over the next few weeks.
But why? It feels awfully similar to the Mark Philippoussis era.
Never truly embraced by the Australian public, questions over his commitment and work ethic, living the so-called ‘party lifestyle’.
The parallels between the two are easy to draw, but the reality is Bernard Tomic is a less talented version of Mark Philippoussis.
Philippousis never won a major (twice a runner up) but I always got the impression if he was healthy he had the ability to win seven matches on the trot.
Maybe I was easily teased by Mark and his talents. Huge serve, power off both wings, capable volley, was a pretty good mover for his size.
Problem was he was rarely healthy or motivated to care enough. What would have happened if he didn’t hurt his knee up a set in a quarter final against Pete Sampras at Wimbledon in 1999, or if he didn’t spend the night drinking and cavorting with New York socialites before his US Open final against Pat Rafter in 1998?
What would have happened if Philippousis had the work ethic of a Rafter or Hewitt, three maybe four majors was not out of the question.
Truth be told we will never know, but I do know Tomic, at this stage at least, is not the naturally and physically gifted player Philippoussis was.
He may not be the party guy that Mark was either, but he is certainly trying.
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