Bernard Tomic was kicked out of a match – and he wasn’t even playing

Bernard Tomic’s sputtering tennis career has been engulfed in drama again after he was booted out of a fiery ATP Challenger match in Santo Domingo – that he was not even playing in.

The former world No.17 and 2011 Wimbledon quarter-finalist – now ranked 250 while playing regularly on the lower-tier Challenger and Futures tours – was courtside for the final between Bosnian Damir Dzumhur and Ecuador’s Andy Andrade.

Tomic lost to Andrade in the quarter-finals, after which he did not shake his opponent’s hand, before turning up to support his friend Dzumhur, who won the match 6-4, 6-4 to secure the title.

The 31-year-old Australian did not make it to the end of the match, with tournament supervisor Ricardo Reis, security and other tournament staff asking him to leave, which Dzumhur confirmed afterwards was at Andrade’s request.

The Santo Domingo crowd cheered loudly as Tomic trudged from the stands. Reis and others also had an extended discussion with Tomic at the end of the first set.

“Tomic is my friend, and I am not the one who demanded that he be kicked out from the stands, but my opponent in the final,” an English translation of a Dzumhur social media post read.

Reis first approached and spoke to Tomic – wearing a hat, sunglasses, socks and sandals for the nighttime final – after the third game.

Two games later, with Andrade leading 3-1 and at deuce on serve, the drama ratcheted up, with the chair umpire having already asked the crowd to not shout between points.

Dzumhur started remonstrating with a fan, and the chair umpire requested repeatedly for him to resume the match then eventually issued him a code violation, which incensed the Bosnian.

“What is wrong with you?” Dzumhur said after walking towards the chair umpire. “You have problems, you have problems. We will go out of the court and talk about this, and I’m going to report you.”

Reis began speaking to Dzumhur at that stage, coinciding with Tomic walking towards the chair umpire and inserting himself in the situation.

“Before the match, this guy [the fan] came up to him [Dzumhur],” Tomic told the chair umpire, going on to indicate that Reis needed to be aware of that interaction.

It is unclear exactly what Tomic did from that point, but Ecuadorian tennis journalist Kenny Castro alleges that the Australian “moved from corner to corner” at the changes of end – which is supported by the footage of the match – and attended the final to “bother” Andrade.

This account would explain why Andrade requested Tomic be ejected from the crowd.

Tomic was last ranked inside the top 100 five years ago, but is at his highest ranking since 2021 and is edging closer to making the cut for Australian Open qualifying.

This is not the first bizarre Tomic episode even this year, with the former junior prodigy arguing mid-match in May with his girlfriend Keely Hannah at the Little Rock Open in the United States, complaining that he had COVID-19.

Tomic retired from that match and was diagnosed afterwards with COVID-19, which Hannah reportedly had 10 days earlier.

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