The 28-year-old was due to face countryman Marc Polmans on Monday night, but his place will instead be filled by another Aussie, Harry Bourchier.The severity of the setback is unclear, but Tomic posted a video of him playing basketball at Melbourne’s Grand Hyatt Hotel only hours before his withdrawal was revealed.
He spent the past fortnight in hotel quarantine with his girlfriend, Vanessa Sierra, after qualifying for the Australian Open with three hard-fought victories in Doha.Tomic reached his career-high ranking of No.17 five years ago, but he’s tumbled to the extent he’s now only the 229th-best men’s player on the planet.He barely picked up a racquet during a six-month stretch last year, but he recently told AAP he felt refreshed and ready to knuckle down.“It was good for me to have this year off – very, very good,” Tomic said.
“Good for a lot of players, I reckon. Get away from the aeroplane.“I haven’t seen an aeroplane for 10 months. So it gave me a lot of energy, gave me a lot of happiness and a few other things that I’ve also learned and done that’s made me happy.“I started realising a few things now that I didn’t when I was 18, 19, 20.“But I would like to play for sure until I’m 35, if I’m injury free. It’s tough when you have injuries, so I’ll see how we go.” Kyrgios contemporary breaks tour duckSydneysider Aleks Vukic almost cringed when asked on Monday about playing in the juniors with Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis.Vukic, like Kyrgios and Kokkinakis, will play at next week’s Australian Open – and will arrive with some confidence, too, after dispatching Taiwan’s Yen-Hsun Lu 6-4 7-5 for his maiden ATP Tour main draw victory.However, the 24-year-old, whose preparations were impacted by the recent Sydney COVID-19 lockdown, says he wasn’t a patch on his two big-name countrymen as a teenager.Kyrgios and Kokkinakis were playing grand slams seven and eight years ago, respectively, whereas Vukic did so for the first time after qualifying at last year’s French Open.“I went to college (in the United States), so I barely saw these guys, but they were the best juniors – they were destroying me – and I was nowhere near that level,” Vukic said.“But I took a different path and worked hard and for some people it just takes a bit longer to get there, and that’s kind of my journey.“I’m here now and I’m only going to look upward from here and see what happens.”
Vukic competed on the lower tiers of the professional circuit straight out of high school, including briefly joining a Spanish tennis academy, but admits he wasn’t ready mentally for the experience.That’s why he ended up accepting a college scholarship at the University of Illinois, where his tennis life began to turn for the better.“I really improved in my first year in college,” Vukic said.“I was probably doing five, six hours a day of anything related to tennis and just trying to be one of the hardest-working people over there.“I struggled the first year out of college, because in college you go months without losing but when you’re on tour, I was losing every week pretty much and … it took me a while to get used to that.”Armed with an Australian Open wildcard and a top-200 ranking that continues to rise, Vukic is keen to test himself more on the ATP Tour, starting with Italian Jannik Sinner in round two.Two other New South Welshmen, Chris O’Connell and Max Purcell, also advanced to round two at the Great Ocean Road Open.World No.121 Chris O’Connell rallied to oust an increasingly agitated Dominik Koepfer 5-7 6-4 6-1, while Purcell downed Norbert Gombos 6-4 6-4.Destanee Aiava progressed from the first round at the Gippsland Trophy with a 6-1 4-6 6-4 win over Chloe Paquet, but Ajla Tomljanovic lost 5-7 6-1 6-3 to Alize Cornet after a bright start.Aussie No.2 ready to send Millmania into stratosphereAustralian workhorse John Millman is hoping to springboard this week’s ATP Cup campaign into a regular grand slam seeding.
Millman’s been inside the world’s top 50 players since November 2019 and is currently five spots off his career-high ranking of 33 after winning his maiden ATP title in November.He’s Team Australia’s No.2 player, behind Alex de Minaur, is the standard-bearer in practice and will be pivotal if the host nation is to advance from a tough group that includes Spain and Greece.Australia starts at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday night as underdogs against last year’s runner-up, Spain.De Minaur has the imposing task of locking horns with 20-times grand slam champion Rafael Nadal, but Millman will be up first trying to beat Roberto Bautista Agut for the first time in their sixth meeting.
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“I’m really looking forward to that. It’s going to be a really tough test against Roberto Bautista Agut – he’s one of the best players in the world,” Millman told the Herald Sun.“Spain and Russia were two of the teams I earmarked as being some of the toughest in the competition and we avoided Russia but we got Spain.“I love team tennis, I love joining up with some of the boys and I love competing for your country and wearing the colours – I think it’s awesome.”Millman spent the weekend becoming accustomed to this year’s “lively” conditions at Melbourne Park, after being allowed to train only at Xavier College and Kooyong while his peers were in quarantine.
Barring three late high-profile withdrawals, the 31-year-old will be just outside the Australian Open seedings – something he hopes to change for the season’s remaining grand slams.“The next goal I kind of had was to try and get near that top 30, because I’d love to be seeded at some of these slams,” Millman said.“It would be really nice to see a number next to your name. That’s the immediate goal, and the other thing for me – now that I have that first title, I’d love to, perhaps, win some more.“It was a massive thrill for me and I’ve wanted to win an ATP Tour title for the last couple of years, because you see plenty of really good players who haven’t managed to break through and win one.”Millman’s best Australian Open result is twice making the round-of-32, including last year
Tennis Australia chief executive Craig Tiley has unveiled the most “bizarre request” received from tennis stars in hotel quarantine.
WHY DANGEROUS DEMON HAS RAFA’S RESPECTSpanish superstar Rafael Nadal has lavished praise on Australian tyro Alex de Minaur as they prepare for a prime time rematch of last year’s “emotional” ATP Cup cliffhanger.Spain ended Australia’s 2020 ATP Cup challenge in the semi-finals with a clean sweep of the three rubbers, but de Minaur caught the 20-times grand slam champion’s attention that night.
The 21-year-old shocked Nadal by winning the opening set – the first time he’d won one in their third meeting – before the former world No. 1 prevailed 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.He came out of that contest confident he was “going in the right direction” against Nadal, who doesn’t remember the clash fondly.De Minaur is a dual Australian-Spanish citizen who bases himself in Alicante for much of the year.
They will play again on Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday night, with that match-up of respective No. 1s set to be a major factor in which country wins the tie and potentially advances from the group.“(It was) an emotional match, not great for me, but an emotional one, yes,” Nadal said on Sunday.“He’s young and improving every year – he has a lot of things (that are) amazing. “I think it’ll be a tough battle for all of us playing against a great team like Australia.”Spain boasts a star-studded team, with top-20 stars Roberto Bautista Agut and Pablo Carreno Busta the other singles options, while Marcel Granollers is likely to form a doubles pairing with Carreno Busta.
Bautista Agut leads Australia’s No. 2 player John Millman 5-0 head-to-head, while Millman’s beaten Carreno Busta in one of their four matches.“If I have the chance to play, I will try to do my best. I know that Millman is a really good opportunity,” Carreno Busta said.“Always when you play against an Australian guy here in Australia, it’s very tough.”
Bautista Agut was caught up in a pre-Australian Open controversy when he described the hard quarantine conditions as “like a jail”, in an interview that was released to Israel’s Sport 5.He later apologised, saying it was a private conversation that wasn’t supposed to be made public, and on Sunday he was just “happy” to be out and referred to quarantine as “a new experience”.Stefanos Tsitsipas-led Greece is in the same group as Australia and Spain.
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