Flashback to 2008: Davis Cup mentors to help tame Bernard Tomic

There was a time when Davis Cup involvement was being talked about as a way to save the Gold Coast’s then-teen tennis prodigy Bernard Tomic

Bernard Tomic in action at Wimbledon. Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

THE year is 2008 and Gold Coast teenager Bernard Tomic is in the headlines.

It’s not an uncommon place for the then 16-year-old to be.

Ever since he was touted as a future star at the incredibly tender age of eight he had been making the news for being phenomenal at hitting small green balls on a tennis court.

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He was variously described in the Gold Coast Bulletin as a freak, a “pre-teen Lleyton Hewitt” and the next big thing not just in Australian tennis, but world tennis.

He went on to win the under-12, under-14 and under-16 events of the prestigious Orange Bowl in Florida, tournaments regarded as a feeding ground for stars of the future. Previous winners of those events included such luminaries as Andre Agassi and Jim Courier.

Global sports management giant IMG (who more recently cut him from their star roster) signed him for a six-figure, three-year deal in 2006 to make him the world’s highest-paid 13-year-old tennis player.

At the age of 15 years and three months he became the youngest winner of a Grand Slam junior title when he beat a much older Taiwanese player with a 200km/h man’s serve to capture the 2008 Australian Open boy’s trophy.

Later that year he was in the headlines for the wrong reasons. He’d already had a skirmish in 2007 with Tennis Australia which cut his support funding for alleged lack of effort at the junior French Open.

After that run-in, a 15-year-old Tomic vowed to the Bulletin that he’d work harder and manage himself better: “I’ve learnt not what to do if you want to be a champion ... you’ve got to do the right thing and work hard.”

But at a 2008 Futures tournament — an entry-level senior pro tour event in Western Australia — he walked off the court mid-match at the behest of father and mentor John Tomic, reportedly furious that his son was being foot-faulted.

Within weeks, the bigshots of Australian tennis officialdom were stepping in — and pushing for his involvement in the Davis Cup squad as a way to mentor the rising Bernie.

Then National Academy head coach Wally Masur — now captain of the Davis Cup team from which Tomic has been banned him for an upcoming tie — told the Bulletin the teenage Tomic would benefit from as much time as possible soaking up Davis Cup culture: “The key for Bernard is to find a good emotional state to play in and an environment in which he will flourish and learn — and being part of Davis Cup squads would give him all that. He needs more opportunities and to benefit from the wisdom and experience he can get there.”

Fast forward to earlier this week and Tomic, now Australia’s No. 1 ranked player, a first-pick for the Davis Cup team, a guy with a 14-2 winning Davis Cup record, has been banned for at least one tie.

The ban for the upcoming Kazakhstan match on grass in Darwin comes on the back of his outburst against Tennis Australia during a Wimbledon press conference following his third-round loss.

Within days Tennis Australia president Steve Healy had labelled Tomic’s verbal spray as “unacceptable” and that playing for Australia was a privilege that came with certain obligations.

But Mr Healy extended an olive branch to Tomic, now 22, saying: “Hope-fully he will learn from this. Our entire tennis community is committed to working hard to help all our players, including Bernard, to be the best players and best people they can be.”

Watch this space.