Bernard Tomic casts further uncertainty over his tennis future after withdrawing from Brisbane

IT’S been a year to forget for Bernard Tomic, and just when you thought there was nothing more to come, it looks like he’s given up on his Brisbane International and pre-Australian Open campaign before it’s even started.

Bernard Tomic of Australia prepares to leave the court after he lost to Kyle Edmund of Britain during their men's singles first round match at the ATP Chengdu Open tennis tournament in Chengdu, China's southwestern Sichuan province on September 26, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT

BERNARD Tomic has withdrawn from qualifying for the Brisbane International, casting further uncertainty over his tennis future.

Tomic’s entry to the qualifying rounds starting on Saturday at the Queensland Tennis Centre has been withdrawn in the past 48 hours.

A line appears through the name of Queensland’s former world no. 17 on an entry list on an ATP Tour website accessible to players and officials.

The former Australian Davis Cup player has entered qualifying for the Australian Open next month but there has been no indication that his involvement in those rounds are in doubt.

Tomic and other Australian men are awaiting to see whether they receive one of the remaining wildcards to the main draw of the year’s first Grand Slam event.

Earlier this month, he opted not to contest Tennis Australia’s wildcard playoff.

Bernard Tomic has had a 12 months to forget

Tomic was reduced to playing qualifying because of a poor run of results this year which saw his ranking tumble from No. 26 to No. 140.

His commitment to tennis was widely panned in July when he said he was “bored” by it, didn’t care if he won even Grand Slam matches and played only for money.

He played ATP qualifying at one European tournament and one Challenger event there late in the season.

Tomic’s case for Tennis Australia wildcards at his time of need was not helped by his unavailability for Davis Cup this year and his decisions to skip this month’s Australian Open wildcard playoffs and not take up an invitation to a training camp of Davis Cup team members in Melbourne.

Speaking before Tomic’s bypass of the Brisbane International was known, TA director of Tennis Wally Masur said he understood the former Wimbledon quarter-finalist was training this month on the Gold Coast.

Masur said the decision by Tomic to not play the wildcard playoffs won by 18-year-old Alex de Minaur would not cost Tomic one of TA’s discretionary wildcards to the Australian Open, but added that players who competed at the series in mid-December had sought to put their names in front of the TA selectors.

Former Australian Davis Cup captain john Newcombe said last month that if Tomic could not commit himself to a higher level of fitness training he should take six months off to decide if he wanted a tennis career.