Bernard Tomic will be looking to continue moving on from a shocking year off the court and claim a major scalp in the second round at Wimbledon when he takes on Japan’s 24th seed Kei Nishikori. Join The Roar for live scores from around 12:30am (AEST).
There is more than just the result of this match riding on the game here. If Tomic wins, he would likely set up a mouthwatering third-round encounter against fellow countryman Nick Kyrgios.
Before he gets there though, he will have to overcome Nishikori, who has suffered a dramatic fall down the world rankings and indeed Wimbledon seedings thanks to injury throughout 2018.
Tomic has had a rough year – a rough few years in fact. He did very little in 2017, before kicking off 2018 in Australia. Going through qualifying at the Australian Open, he came away with a third-round loss, not making the main draw, before he was granted a lucky loser place at the French Open.
On his least favourite surface, he was then beaten by a man who had drove nine hours overnight to claim another lucky loser’s spot.
Back on the grass though, and with a stint on reality TV and more controversy between the two grand slams, Tomic finally appears to be approaching an enjoyment level in his tennis again.
While he had to qualify here as well and did in fact lose his third-round encounter against Ruben Bemelmans, the Australian was granted a spot in the main draw and didn’t waste it, blasting past Hubert Hurkacz in the first round.
The straight-sets win will give him a stack of confidence following a semi-final run at s-Hertogenbosch in the lead-up, with wins over Richard Gasquet and Fernando Verdasco.
His opponent Nishikori spent most of 2017 in the top ten of the world rankings, but he has fallen big time this year. Nishikori has struggled with injury, and while he returned through the US challenger circuit in the lead-up to the French Open before playing some good matches, he was bounced out in the fourth round.
When compared to clay and hard courts, the world No.28 has traditionally struggled on grass courts, while the opposite could be said of Tomic.
His only grass court tournament in the lead-up to Wimbledon was played in Halle where he lost to Karen Khachanov in the second round. The loss will leave him short of match practice, and it showed in the first round as he scrapped over the line in four sets against Christian Harrison.
Prediction
Tough match to tip this. Tomic, at his best, wins on grass. Whether he can hold his best over three, four, or five sets against an opponent like Nishikori though is up for debate. I’ll take the safe option.
Nishikori in four sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of this match from around 12:30am (AEST) on Court 2 and don’t forget to add a comment in the section below.
tsuru
Roar Rookie
The match has just finished. I missed most of the last set, but it certainly seems that, despite losing the match, Tomic took some steps forward. The statistics of the match were mainly even. Serve percentages, 1st serves won, unforced errors were roughly equal. Nishikori had a clear advantage in winners, including (surprisingly) aces. In the context of Tomic's performance in the last year and his past attitude, this seems to me to be a positive. His fitness seemed OK, 2 hours 43 minutes, his attitude seemed almost Zen-like at times (barring the final point of the 2nd set when he made no attempt at an, admittedly very good, Nishikori serve, and he played at a level you would estimate as a top 50 player if you'd never seen him before. I hope he can can continue to hold it together as it is really enjoyable to watch his very different game.
tsuru
Roar Rookie
Interesting possibility here in the USA. I'm watching on ESPN online in New York. They apparently have the contract to cover Wimbledon - at least for the earlier rounds. And while they are obviously showing centre court on TV, they are providing updates on TV of matches on outside courts - Shapavolov, Cibulkova, DelPo etc. But they are so far (3rd set) ignoring this match - despite Nishikori being very popular. I'm wondering if they have chosen to boycott Tomic because of his past behaviour. It's clearly not just a case of focusing on Americans - see above.