 | « Back to article | Print this article |
‘I'm in a fight with Tennis Australia’
Bernard Tomic has swatted aside offers of help from Australian tennis officials following his arrest in Miami after a noisy hotel room party.
The controversial world number 25 was charged with trespassing and resisting arrest earlier this week after security guards were called to his room following multiple noise complaints.
Australian tennis player Tomic charged after noisy penthouse party
'What's going on? Where is the support?'
Australia's Davis Cup team dumps Tomic
The incident followed his expulsion from the Davis Cup team after his public tirade against senior Tennis Australia (TA) officials at Wimbledon.
Following the arrest, Davis Cup captain Wally Masur said he would reach out to the troubled 22-year-old, while TA high performance chief Pat Rafter told local media he hoped the player would return to the national fold.
Tomic apologised on American television for the 'disturbance' he had caused, but told Australia's Channel Nine he had no plans to make peace with his country's tennis administration.
"Things aren't good," he told the broadcaster in a video posted on its news website on Saturday.
"It's tough, they have some things they did.
"It's no good. I don't think I'll be talking to them anytime soon."
Tomic has previously been dumped from the Davis Cup team for attitude problems and criticised by former players and pundits for ‘tanking’, or giving up, during matches.
His father and some-time coach John has also generated negative headlines and was banned from tour events for a year after being convicted by a Spanish court for assaulting his son's former practice partner.
Bernard Tomic made his Wimbledon outburst after Rafter said he would cut off development funding for the player's younger sister Sara due to her father's uncooperative attitude.
Sara Tomic plays mostly on the second-tier ITF circuit.
An already frosty relations plumbed a new low this week when TA sent out a media release that said Bernard Tomic was playing a ‘Hall of Shame’ tournament against another local player, rather than the Hall of Fame championships in Newport.
TA hastily apologised for what it said was a ‘clerical error’, but the Tomics threatened to sue the governing body.
At Wimbledon, Bernard Tomic described 42-year-old Rafter as a ‘mask’ and a TA stooge but told Channel Nine he was not feuding with the amiable two-time Grand Slam champion, who remains highly respected in Australia and often held up as a paragon of sportsmanship.
"I don't have anything to say to him, he's a nice guy," Tomic said.
"Everyone thinks we're in a fight but we're not, we're good.
"I'm in a fight with Tennis Australia."
