Teen Spirit

Sun Herald

Sunday January 18, 2009

Jessica Halloran

With the likes of Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis slipping down the professional rankings, Australian sports fans are hungry for a new tennis star. Could Bernard Tomic be the answer? Jessica Halloran meets the young prodigy.

It was at a Gold Coast garage sale that John Tomic bought the tennis racquet that would send his son on a meteoric journey. He picked up the Slazenger racquet, thumbed the strings and then handed over a 50-cent coin. "It was the first time I had touched a tennis racquet," John says.

John, then a taxi driver, often looked down at the tennis court in the Southport apartment complex where his family lived. He'd barely heard of the sport before he arrived in 1996, fleeing the war in his homeland of Croatia via Germany to build a new life on the Gold Coast. "We were refugees," says John. "It was a struggle in the early years - very, very hard."

John was a talented soccer player and coach in his home country, and his seven-year-old son was something with a football, too, drawing crowds at the apartment complex with his soccer tricks. "But then tennis came along," says Bernard Tomic.

The 16-year-old remembers picking up that 50-cent racquet, venturing down to the apartment court and beating a few local kids in his first games. Three weeks later, he entered a local tournament and placed sixth. Buoyed by his son's progress, John would drive his taxi by day and study tennis coaching at night. He read "hundreds of sports books", such as basketball star Michael Jordan's For The Love Of The Game: My Story, and started to guide his son.

Aged seven, Tomic was defeating 11-year-olds.

At 12 he was the winner of nearly 100 junior tournaments internationally and by far the world's best 13-and-under player. He won the under-12, under-14 and under-16 Orange Bowl tournaments in Florida, becoming the first player to win all three.

Tomic was still 12 and had won four International Tennis Federation under-18 titles when UK-based manager Lawrence Frankopan signed up the prodigy to the IMG media group for a six-figure sum. A year later, Tomic penned a six-figure contract with Nike, and in recent months, deals with Nokia and skincare company Garnier.

On the court, it's Tomic's anticipation that makes him special, says Australian Davis Cup captain John Fitzgerald. "When he hits the ball, he knows how it's going to come back and how to structure the point. He's absolutely beyond his years with that skill."

Today, Tomic is on the cusp of something brilliant, but life is getting harder for him. "It's been tough," he says, "and it's going to be even tougher in the coming years." These days the teenager is taking on men in senior tournaments. It's his biggest challenge by far, especially in this tennis-loving nation desperate for

a new star. "I worked pretty hard from nine until 12," says Tomic. "I hit a lot of balls. Now you come up against a good player and try to hit a few balls back, and they'll hit a winner off it."

Tomic says he likes the pressure because he has the support of "Team Tomic". Led by his father John (who has given up cab driving to coach his son full-time), the team also consists of Frankopan and the manager of athlete development at Tennis Australia, Craig Morris. Morris joined Team Tomic a year ago and manages everything from scheduling to sports medicine requirements. Tomic has also worked with former tennis player Mark Draper, veteran coach Neil Guiney and former tennis pro Geoff Masters.

Off the court, Tomic's mum Ady, a biomedical scientist, cares for his younger sister, Sara, 10.

Underneath Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena in the women's changing rooms (the only quiet spot during renovations), Tomic is polite and quick to smile. He often throws his head back laughing, showing off the braces on his teeth, which he says he doesn't mind. It's his second visit to the women's change room; the day before he was here to do a Garnier commercial alongside former pro tennis player Alicia Molik. "I had to say a few words," he says shyly.

Many brands have wooed the teenager and his manager Frankopan has already knocked back several offers. "It's important that we think long term," he says. "He's a good-looking kid, he's cool and he's hip - he's a great role model off the court. Nike are selective; they only chose the creme de la creme."

Even as his career soars and he tours the globe for half a year, Tomic tries to be a regular teenager (albeit with a few extra $100,000 in pocket money). He still hangs out at the Southport shopping centre, going to movies with his old schoolmates. "A few always ask how they could improve their game," he laughs, "but I don't like playing tennis in my rest time." Tomic loves deep-sea fishing; "Anything that takes a while to reel in," he says.

Because of his travel schedule - he was home-schooled by his mum and a tutor in 2007 and left school last year to concentrate on tennis - Tomic has missed out on kicking around the schoolyard with his mates. "I've got to do everything I can to be

the best tennis player I can be," he says.

In his downtime, Tomic likes to upload mobile phone videos of himself doing soccer tricks, as well as happy snaps with his tennis heroes Pat Rafter and Roger Federer and, of course, the big fish he's caught. On his Facebook and MySpace sites it's mostly girls littering his "walls" with messages such as "Where Are You At The Mo? x x" and "Heyyy baby cakes".

He shakes his head shyly when asked if he has a girlfriend. "No, I don't. I get a lot fan mail, but you've got to stay out of it." Too distracting? Tomic just laughs and flashes his railroad of sparkling braces. "After tennis," he says.

"Hard work" and "discipline" are his dad's favourite words. The father is very aware of what his son can be and says there is much more work to be done. "We know he can be a No. 1 player," John says, "but you can't make it overnight."

"We have a strong belief that he can break into the pro ranks, but there's still a long way to go," adds Craig Morris. "He's just turned 16; he's losing as much as he was once winning now. But he's also learning how to compete with the men; this year he'll start to learn how to win at this level."

There have been slip-ups by Tomic. In June 2007, aged 14, he was sent home from a European tour by Tennis Australia coaches, after it was deemed he had not tried his best during a loss at the French Open juniors. When asked about the incident,

Tomic expertly deflects, showing media maturity beyond his years. "It was long time ago," he says.

"It's in the past. I was younger then - 13, 14. I'm still a young boy, but I've definitely grown up. Now I've got to focus on the future."

And John Tomic is learning to contain his behaviour, too. Just last month the International Tennis Federation launched an investigation after Tomic forfeited a second-round match at the Sorrento International Futures tournament in Perth. John ordered his son from the court, believing he was not being treated fairly by the match umpire.

He accused match officials of scheming against Bernard and organisers of "fixing draws" before pulling his son out of the event.

A few days later, John publicly apologised for his behaviour at Tennis Australia's insistence. He knows he must learn to contain his frustration for the sake

of his son, but says he feels very protective. "Every parent wants to give the best for their kids."

The comparisons with Lleyton Hewitt are unavoidable. Hewitt was 15 years and 11 months old when he qualified for the Australian Open. If Bernard is awarded a wild card for the Australian slam, he'll be 16 years and three months. The two are drastically different in height - Hewitt stands at 180 centimetres, while Bernard is 190 centimetres and growing - but they have a similar baseline game. "I'd say my game style is a lot like Lleyton's," says Tomic.

Last year, Tomic met Hewitt for the first time at a Davis Cup tie against Thailand in Townsville. Davis Cup captain John Fitzgerald says it was of great value to the teenager to just be in Hewitt's company. However, Fitzgerald can see there is still some way for the 16-year-old to develop on court. "He's ahead of his age. But there are still areas he can improve, and that's a promising thing," he says.

"There's no cookie cutter for making a pro athlete," Frankopan says, before adding, "I don't want the public in Australia reacting to Bernard the way they did to Lleyton. I'll do everything to protect my client."

Frankopan is all too aware of Hewitt's difficulties with his image. It started at age 18, when Hewitt labelled the Australian public "stupid" after the crowd heckled him at the hardcourt championships in his home town of Adelaide. At the 2001 French Open he called a chair umpire and the net judge "spastics".

In 2006, Hewitt was nominated by GQ magazine as one of the "10 most hated athletes".

Tomic understands that incidents such as being sent home from Roland Garros in Paris and the forfeit in Perth last month need to be few and far between. "You don't want to do something wrong to the crowd," he says, "because they might end up booing you. Dealing with 10,000 people booing you is not going to be nice."

And as Fitzgerald points out, there is always the unknown - unknown players, that is. Wimbledon and French Open champion Rafael Nadal exploded on the world scene at 17. "Sometimes the best players of the era you haven't seen at 16," says Fitzgerald. "Nadal didn't worry about winning junior Wimbledon or the French. We all heard there was this 16-year-old as strong as a bull, but we didn't see him until he was 17, when he gave the French Open a huge shake."

Around this time last year, Tomic won the Australian Open Juniors - one of the happiest days of his life, he says. Before the tournament, his Catholic parents bought him a crucifix. Tomic, who also has a strong faith, wore it all through last summer at Melbourne Park. "It's become a lucky charm," he says. Could it be a lucky charm for a grand slam title? "Yep," Tomic says, "but that's going to be a long way away."

© 2009 Sun Herald

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