Hopes that Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic might possibly, even on a small scale, represent a return to the Australian tennis of Laver and Rosewall took a nosedive recently.
Tomic played just eight minutes of a first round match against Benoit Paire before conceding due to illness. Tomic has now failed to get beyond the first round for three consecutive tournaments and was recently accused of taking a fall against Fabio Frangini with the match on the line in the Madrid Open. He literally turned his racquet the wrong way to receive a serve.
As Australia’s top-ranked men’s player, he must deal with the very real possibility that the Australian Olympic Committee will find another player or seek a refund of his Rio plane ticket.
His behavior even drew criticism from the normally taciturn Novak Djokovic, who at this stage of the 2016 ATP season, has yet to reach his quota of three sentences.
Kyrgios, meanwhile, could not be accused of vagueness when he responded to calls for decorum by the Australian Olympic Committee’s Kitty Chiller with words to the effect that Ms. Chiller could store the Olympic selection in a place well known for its lack of sunshine.
Kyrgios did come to Tomic’s defense regarding the recent incidents, so perhaps the two can partner for a doubles Olympic boycott.
