Don’t be a tool, Tomic
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Date Posted:
January-22-2010 12:58
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Teenage tennis gun Bernard Tomic may one day be a grand slam-winning colossus of the sport, taking over from Lil’ Lleyton as the standard-bearer of the men’s game in Australia. It’s something to hope for.
There’s something else to hope for too: that Tomic doesn’t grow up to be as frustratingly unlikeable as Hewitt. Sadly, the early signs aren’t good. Tomic’s press conference after being beaten by Marin Cilic was a petulant exercise in juvenile whining.
Now, you could argue that, as a 17-year-old, he is a juvenile, and whining is just something kids do. Perhaps. But that press conference, coupled with his ridiculous “feud” with Hewitt, suggests he could probably do with some better guidance from his parents. Something along the lines of, “Snap out of it, son. You want to play with the men, you best act like one.”
Still, he’s only young, so there’s still time for his advisors to mould him into the man we all want him to be. I’m not sure the Australian public can handle another decade with no option but to support a player who is, to put it mildly, a bit of a berk.
And if you needed reminding why it is that Lleyton’s never really won the hearts of the nation, here’s a reminder. This is from the 2001 US Open where he lashed out about a black linesman:
Tell us what you think. Are you a Lleyton Lover or a Hewitt Hater? Is Bernard Tomic the future of Australian tennis or a skinny little brat?
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