Bernard Tomic is one of the most mercurial tennis players of the 21st century. In a recent final on the ATP Challenger Tour, he endured one of the worst days of his career.
Tomic's struggles in recent years make it easy to forget that he was one of the most naturally gifted players that Australia has produced and was tipped to have significant success as a result.
Those expectations grew further when Tomic reached the quarterfinal of the 2011 Wimbledon Championships as an 18-year-old and also pushed the eventual champion Novak Djokovic to four sets.
Tomic had some other successes in the years after that, including winning four ATP titles, getting to three Masters-1000 quarterfinals, and reaching a high of No. 17 in the rankings in January 2016.
However, the Australian has undoubtedly achieved less than many expected when he broke through at Wimbledon in 2011. His volatile attitude and not working as hard as he could have are significant reasons for that.
The 31-year-old acknowledges that reality. Tomic believes he might have won a Grand Slam if he had been willing to work hard and hopes to return to the Top 50.
The four-time ATP title winner has much work ahead of him to achieve that. Tomic's last Grand Slam main draw appearance was at the 2021 Australian Open, showing how his fortunes have sharply declined in recent years.
To his credit, Tomic could have given up when he ended 2022 at No. 462 in the rankings. He improved his ranking to No. 207, although that is still far below the goal he set himself of the Top 50.
Unfortunately for Tomic, his volatility could make that goal impossible. In August, the former world No. 17 demonstrated that he had to be ejected from a match for heckling an opponent he lost to earlier in the tournament.
Tomic reached the final of the Fairfield Challenger last week, an achievement that saw him jump 26 places in the rankings to his current position of No. 207. But his final against the No. 1 seed Learner Tien ended dreadfully.
The Australian was thrashed 0-6, 1-6 by the home favorite Tien in just 39 minutes. That makes it the shortest ATP Challenger Tour final ever recorded. Although most of the fans in Fairfield would have been supporting the American Tien, the match undoubtedly felt like a waste of their time.
Tomic did not create a single breakpoint during the match and was broken five times throughout the contest. He also landed just 41% of first serves and only won 9% of points on Tien's second serve.
Incredibly, that was not the quickest defeat of Tomic's career. He infamously lost to Jarkko Nieminen in an astounding 28 minutes at the 2014 Miami Open. That remains the quickest match in ATP Tour history.
Such sudden lapses in level are why Tomic has not achieved what he could have. At 31 years old, getting back to the Top 100 or Top 50 is an uphill task, but at least he is still playing to try and make that happen.
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