Tennis Australia backs Hewitt in Tomic row

I can't see how you could be confused when the opening sentence reads... 'Tennis Australia is standing behind Lleyton Hewitt as Davis Cup captain despite a blistering attack from outsider Bernard Tomic' I actually cut TA some slack by not referring to the circus running the show to cut both Tomic and Hewitt.

Thanasi is perennially injured, while Bolt has had more or less full seasons. Thanasi was even injured this week. He is a walking injury.

Mate, if the reports are accurate, Bolt’s injuries were enough to make him walk away from the sport 3 years ago. But you are right, the results this week would suggest the wildcards went to deserving people. And the emotion shown by Bolt also

To be clear, who do you mean by "both of these clowns"? Are you saying Tomic and Hewitt? Or Tomic and Kyrgios? Problem is I can't see what Hewitt has done to cop the flak. Ok, Roger Rasheed has come out today to say in his opinion Hewitt shouldn't have returned serve and should have dealt with it behind closed doors. But I'm not sure if that's possible given Wally has publicly said (as per the article above) that once these players become professionals they are on their own and have nothing more to do with the TA. There are no "closed doors" - TA cannot ban players from playing, and so they also can't legislation for them to shut up. Obviously if Hewitt has unlawfully favoured players over others then it needs to be dealt with. But so far I haven't seen any reports on that.

Tennis Australia needs to own this situation and rap both of these clowns over the knuckles. Hewitt is no wall flower, he has history for being a petulant brat so one would imagine he should be perfectly capable dealing with the current round of brats... Apparently not! T/A can save face...Punt both to the kerb, bring back Wally for an interim period.

Bolt's injury history cannot be compared to Thanasi's. I agree it would be better if there was more clarification regarding why certain players got wild cards, but not others. However, I think the first 2 rounds do the tournament demonstrated the wisdom in giving one to Bolt, but not Thanasi.

Richard Hinds and other journos are also suggesting that TA and Hewitt have a case to answer, and Tomic and Kyrios' undeniable stupidity doesn't diminish that. There's been something fishy about TA for some time. And I'm the first person to wish that these two tools would go away and play basketball or whatever. But they won't, because they have to keep their fawning entourages fed and they make way too much money doing just enough work to be competitive (but not the sort of sacrifices that made Hewitt such a great player).

Bolt is 4 years older than Kokka, and also has an extensive history of battling injury, so that isn't completely fair, albeit I'd take the attitude comment as being accurate. This is a little reminiscent of recent cricket selections, with Marnus apparently becoming Langer's golden boy simply through showing (shock horror) a positive attitude at training. I can't fault for one second a coach wanting to select enthusiastic players over those with more talent but less application. But all it required was TA to explain their decision (as has been the practice in the past).

Be that as it may, I still think enough is enough and it was time for Hewitt to hit back. And he didn't just take a casual swipe, Hewitt said everything in a planned press conference. Why? He's tried to keep his mouth shut for long enough, he's side stepped the issues last few days, and none of that worked, so I have no problem in Hewitt formally hitting back. As for conflict, what's the accusation here? Do we actually have any player who is better than de Minaur, Bolt, Barty etc who have been jibbed? Clearly not Tomic or Kyrgios. As to Kokkinakis, I wouldn't give him a wild card either given his fragile body, lack of results and how he's been around for long enough. I don't even think he is a better player than Bolt. So exactly where is the conflict of interest? Not only did Masur directly respond to the point about Kokkinakis' lack of wild card, but he also said Hewitt only gives his nominations and it is TA which makes the decision. Obviously what Hewitt says carries a lot of weight, but why shouldn't it? The guy is our current Davis Cup captain, which means you would think out of every person in the tennis hierarchy he should know the current players the best. If he says he wants to give someone a go, as long as it isn't something like he was bribed (which nobody has remotely suggested), then what's the issue? So yes, while Tomic has succeeded in generating a lot of talk, I'm pretty sure when he reads commentary where nobody in the country agrees with him, he won't be very pleased.

Tomic has unfortunately succeeded with exactly what he planned to achieve. He has got people talking about him, he can't do it with his tennis so he has done it with controversial statements. Australian tennis has had a few good days on the court but he has sadly stolen the limelight from more deserving players.

Can't blame Hewitt for walking away from Kyrios and Tomic (if indeed he did). As Pat Rafter noted about the pair when he stood down from the Davis Cup captaincy 'why would you put yourself through that?' In the rather admirable history of Australian tennis players these two are outliers. At least Kyrios is colourful (and apparently runs a charity). On the other hand, poor old colourless Bernie seems to have trouble putting words together in their correct sequence. Accusing Hewitt of making money out of wildcard selections is surely an attention-seeking attempt to garner a bit of sympathy. Hard to believe that it's true. I imagine that they'll both gradually fade into the ether without much to show for their time in tennis. On the other hand Barty and De Minaur and a few of the others coming through give us great hope for the future.

Tomic carrying on like a brat. 'If you can't do anything good then be nasty and make like difficult for someone else'. This outburst shouldn't have legs, he's wasting oxygen for decent people. I remember not so long ago when the world seemed to be against Kyrgios that Hewitt was one of the few giving him max support and that Hewitt was a major supporter for Tomic in his youth. Nothing to see here, move on

He's not going to retire. Too much easy money to make in tennis. What's he going to do get a job? I'd actually fear for his well being if he quit tennis.

There may be some form of truth in it. But unfortunately for Tomic, he does have a pretty ordinary reputation. From tanking matches, to getting into trouble with the police, the sooner he retires, the better.

His body language in that interview just made me pity him. It's the same defensive and uncomfortable body language we endlessly see from Nick

How is there a conflict of interest? Thanasi's body is made of glass, he's not that young anymore and tennis Australia are making the decision to back the younger guys with a better attitude. Hewitt has still been one of our best two doubles players along with Peers. Move on.

The problem Tomic has is that he's lost all credibility, so even on the occasions when his rants contain quite reasonable points, nobody is going to listen to him. There may be conflicts of interest with Lleyton that are a problem and need to be looked at, but nobody is going to take anything Tomic says seriously unless he first shuts up, puts in some serious effort, works incredibly hard, and actually makes something of the tennis talents he has instead of just wasting them.

I wouldn't call it a blistering attack from Tomic. That makes it sound like it was effective, like it was so scorching that it blistered the target. It was a childish whinge and nothing more that reflected Tomic more than Hewitt.

I’m no fan of tonic but he has a point, wildcards and his management business, has he retired and there is s conflict of interest.

It's been a wonderful 1st round of tennis to have Kirios and Tomick bundled out. I'll back Hewitt. Tomick at best throws matches because he doesn't care. At worst he throws matches because he's a match fixer. Kirios needs to grow up. You're not from the 'hood Nick you are from Canberra. You spent your youth at expensive tennis academies for indulged children.