Bernard Tomic returns to Australian Open after two-year grind on lower ATP tours

Bernard Tomic is back for the Aussie summer. But how he made it, after quitting 16 of 62 tournaments in two years, adds more intrigue to one of the great wasted talents of Aussie tennis.

Bernard Tomic, Australia’s one-time world No.17 and former great hope of a home grand slam champion, will fight through qualifying at the Australian Open next week for the first time in three years.

After plummeting to as low as No.825 in the world in 2022, 24 months of toil – and trouble – on the Challenger Tour has delivered Tomic, 32, a high enough ranking to once again throw his hat in the ring at Melbourne Park.

It is a remarkable comeback from the problem child of Australian tennis, grinding away on the lower tier circuit through 62 tournaments in 24 months travelling to all parts of the world including India, Thailand, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Puerto Rico yet not a single tournament in Australia.

Bernard Tomic at the Australian Open in 2022, just months before his ATP rating blew out to 825. Picture: Getty Images

His last match in his home country was his AO qualifying loss to Roman Safiullin in 2022, when he told the umpire in a mid-match rant he was certain he had Covid.

When the ATP rankings updated on Saturday, 1089 days after he last appeared in Australia, he sat at No.214.

Reilly Opelka, the man who felled Novak Djokovic in straight sets at the Brisbane International on Friday night, was just seven spots higher.

Opelka is the feel-good story of the Australian summer as he commences his comeback from a two-year injury lay-off following the removal of a tumour from his hip and dual wrist surgeries.

By funny coincidence his career-high ranking is also No.17, just like Tomic.

The American once feared he might never get to play tennis again. Tomic once told the world he “couldn’t care less if I make the fourth round at the US Open or lose in the first round.”

Tomic embracing Skander Mansouri after their Mexico Open quarter-final epic in 2024. Picture: ATP Challenger Tour/Instagram

Like Opelka, Tomic had the game to challenge Djokovic.

His run to the 2011 Wimbledon quarter-finals, where he fell in four sets to the eventual champion, was meant to be only the beginning.

Djokovic was peerless that year, winning three of the four grand slams, and Tomic pushed him like few could.

But six years later, having phoned in a first round performance against Mischa Zverev at Wimbledon barely a week after blitzing him at Eastbourne, Tomic’s infamous “couldn’t care less” comments reverberated throughout the tennis world.

It seemed everyone wanted to see Tomic succeed except him.

The following year he faced fellow Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis in qualifying at Flushing Meadows.

“We were playing US Open qualies, second round, I ended up winning in three sets,” Kokkinakis recalled on the UTS Talk Show Podcast last November.

“He comes up to me and is like, ‘I did all right, huh? I did all right against you. I did like 5-6 days partying in Miami, barely sleeping, so much drinking … I did pretty well.”

Tomic once had the game to challenge Novak Djokovic, going down in the 2011 Wimbledon quarter-finals.

Canadian star Denis Shapovalov then shared his own Tomic tale from the 2020 off-season when his coach organised hitting practice between the pair on the Gold Coast.

“We start hitting and everything is good, then like 10-15 minutes in he’s (Tomic) like, ‘can we grab a drink? I’m gassed’,” Shapovalov recalled.

“He’s on the bench and he’s like, ‘this is my first hit in six months’ or something like that … ‘guys, I can’t do much more’.”

The pair agreed to end practice with a match simulation 10-point tie-breaker and, “The guy crushes me, like 10-4 – and I wasn’t playing bad,” said Shapovalov, who only a few weeks earlier had reached the Paris Masters final.

“The guy was passing me, playing ridiculous and I was low key pissed like dude, I’m putting in all this work, he hasn’t hit in six months and he’s just toying (with) me.

“I remember he comes up to me on the bench after that and is like, ‘are you going to practice this afternoon?’. I’m like, ‘yeah, what about you?’ He’s like, ‘nah, I’m gonna go surfing’.”

For so many years Tomic proclaimed to not care about tennis. Yet last year, from January to November, he played in Thailand, India, United States, Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Canada and Brazil.

Eight countries. Thirty-three tournaments. Fifty wins, 32 losses and a paltry total pay packet of $101,612.

His 2024 Tour de Tennis could not have been purely about the money, because of that there was very little. But clearly, he is still struggling to strike the right balance.

Among those 33 tournaments, he retired from eight of them and twice handed his opponents a walkover. Four of those retirements were at the quarter-final or semi-final stage.

In August, he was ejected from the RD Open in Dominican Republic after being accused of heckling another player from the stands, having lost to him in the previous round.

In 2023 it was 29 tournaments in 10 countries. Forty-one wins, 28 losses, 5 retirements and one walkover for $62,303.

Tomic was ejected from the RD Open in Dominican Republic in August for allegedly heckling a rival.

In two years he’s quit a quarter of the 62 tournaments he’s entered, 16 in total, yet somehow kept his head afloat financially living abroad with $163,000 in earnings and his rankings slowly but steadily rising.

Ask just about any player on the tour in 2010-2019 and they will tell you he had the all-court game to be one of the best in the world. If only he cared to succeed as much as those around him.

“He’s one of a kind,” Kokkinakis added.

“He’s so talented, dude. For me he’s one of the most talented guys, honestly ever. I couldn’t believe it. What he could do with the racquet, I haven’t seen anyone be able to do.

“He’s grinding, playing Challies (Challengers), Futures … he made the Chally final just to lose in 30 minutes.

“I wonder how long he’s got. But he seems happy, I don’t know, on the surface.”

To his peers, he will forever be a tennis enigma. One of the sport’s biggest what-ifs.

Which version of Bernie will we see in Melbourne for AO qualifying next week? Flip a coin.