Australia Looking For Its Next Top Male Player
The battle to be the leading Australian player by the time the Australian Open begins is heating up with just seven ranking places separating Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Kyrgios and the resurgent Bernard Tomic who slipped way outside the world’s top 100 after Wimbledon but is now back up to 56th position.
Hewitt is acutely aware that his days on the ATP World Tour must now be numbered but he is looking over his shoulder and sees plenty of reason to be optimistic about Aussie chances in the future.
“There’s a few of them,” Hewitt told the Melbourne Age. “I wouldn’t rule him out just yet. Nick is obviously a great prospect and Thanasi [Kokkinakis] is another one on the rise, as well, so right at the moment there’s those three guys.
“Then you’ve got Omar Jasika, the US Open junior champion as well, coming up. So the future’s promising.”
Tomic’s off court problems have been constantly documented and he has also been hampered by injuries following surgery to both hips in January. His embarrassing defeat in just 28 minutes at Miami’s Sony Open against Finland’s Jarko Nieminen is now just another painful memory and soon after losing to Tomas Berdych at the All England Club, he won his second career title
There was a time when Tomic and Hewitt were at daggers drawn with each other but now the Aussie veteran and future Davis Cup captain has nothing but praise for his former adversary. “I knew he’d bounce back at some stage,” said Hewitt.
“I was impressed how well he played at Wimbledon against Berdych in the second round there, considering how underdone he was, so I think his hips are probably getting a little bit better.
“Bernie’s a unique player, and he’s a unique person, as well. The last couple of years I feel like I’ve got to know Bernie a lot better, and we actually get along really well.”
And now it seems Tomic could even be replaced by Kyrgios as the bad-boy Aussie after John Newcombe revealed this summer’s Wimbledon quarterfinalist received a stern dressing down from Davis Cup captain Patrick Rafter.
The hard words to Kyrgios came at Australia’s Davis Cup World Group play-off against Uzbekistan in Perth and Newcombe said: “I was aware from Pat and Tony Roche that they had some very harsh words to him and that he was given an ultimatum.
“He was told to shape up or ship out; that ‘if you don’t want to be here, fine, but if you want to be here there’s a culture and expectations and that’s how we’re going to do it as a team and if you don’t want to do it, well, that’s fine, but you’re not welcome’, because that kind of take-no-prisoners culture is the only way you get success.
“And instead of running away he took it on board and turned it around and came back 100%.”
Story via Bob Larson Tennis News.
Topics: Australia, Bernard Tomic, Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Kyrgios, Tennis News, tennis update
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