Making his mark on court

Making his mark on court

Christopher Clarey New York Times

The Australians believe teenager Tomic has the potential to end the country’s long wait for a Grand Slam champion

The hardware is in impressive shape at the Australian Open: two stadiums with retractable roofs and a third one approved as part of an expansion project financed by the government at a projected cost of $357 million. The major concern continues to be the software: the human element, the local talent. All one need do is stroll through the tournament’s central gathering area, Garden Square, to be reminded of – no, confronted with — the rich past of Australian tennis. Lining the walkways are bust after bust of champions long since retired, from Norman Brookes to Margaret Court and Rod Laver to Pat Cash and Patrick Rafter. It must be a particularly daunting stroll for Australian tennis officials because the assembly line ceased production decades ago, and in a globalised era, it is difficult to see how a country of just 21 million inhabitants and an abundance of other sporting options – from rules football to cricket – will be able to manufacture tennis champions in bulk again. No Australian man has won the Australian Open since Mark Edmondson took advantage of a diminished field in 1976. No Australian woman has won since Chris O’Neil did the same in 1978. But the mood, while far from triumphant, has brightened this week. Samantha Stosur, the powerful Queenslander seeded fifth, might be the last Australian woman left, but she is also a legitimate threat for the title. She moved comfortably into the third round Thursday, the same day Bernard Tomic made coming-of-age rumblings in the men’s tournament. The men’s game in Australia has started and ended with Lleyton Hewitt since Mark Philippoussis broke down in the mid-2000s. Once No. 1, Hewitt remains the nation’s best, but he is now ranked 54th and, however tenacious, has become essentially an early-round diversion at Melbourne Park. Enter Tomic, just 18, with an archetypal tennis father and an atypical game that emphasises touch over power. He is rawboned and fidgety – ranked 199th – with a cramped service motion that makes you wonder what his coaches were thinking. But he appears quite capable of driving more conventional players to distraction over the next few years and has been off to a good start here, beating the Frenchman Jeremy Chardy in the first round and then, taking out another veteran top-50 player in straight sets, Feliciano Lopez of Spain, the No 31 seed before bowing to World No 1 Rafael Nadal in the third round. A national celebration is, for now, out of the question, but there was certainly a national interest on Saturday when Tomic faced a more intimidating Spanish left-hander Nadal which was visible at the packed Rod Laver arena. Tomic (pronounced TOM-ick) has been a magnet for expectation in Australia since, at 15, he became the youngest player to win the Australian Open boys’ title in nearly 60 years. He was born in Germany to Croatian parents, and his family immigrated to Australia when he was a young child. His father, John, who remains his coach, has had a contentious relationship with Australian tennis officials. Tomic has had problems, too, being fined in 2009 by the International Tennis Federation for walking off the court during a match in a satellite-level tournament. He has also irked some Australians – and tennis players – with what they perceive as a sense of entitlement. But world-class potential has its privileges, and he received his wild-card spot in this tournament despite having skipped the Australian wild-card tournament, citing illness. So far at least, he has seized the opportunity.  In a sport where gale-force swings are the rule, Tomic is different. His favourite shot is his slice backhand, and he seems to derive more pleasure from making a clever winner than blasting the ball past an opponent. He is a control pitcher in a league full of fastballs. “I catch a lot of guys out with not a lot of power,” he said. “My strengths are I can find players’ weaknesses really quickly. That’s what I’ve always been good at when I was young. I can hit the ball hard, but I don’t do it a lot of the time.” Larry Stefanki, one of the game’s most experienced coaches – he now works with Andy Roddick – thinks Tomic’s serve is a problem but still compares him to Miloslav Mecir, who, like Tomic, was a big man with a deft touch. Meanwhile, Tennis Australia, the sport’s governing body, is working to avoid a situation similar to Britain’s, where Andy Murray, the lone elite player, is an island. With Stosur in her prime, it is already a slightly different equation. It has been a little more than five years since Craig Tiley, the former coach at the University of Illinois, became head of player development for Tennis Australia. He later added the role of Australian Open tournament director. When he arrived, Tiley, a South African by birth who is now a US citizen, said he told his employers they had to choose whether they were in the business of recruitment or development. If the choice was recruitment, Tiley said he needed $20 million to recruit several talented prospects from other countries to play for Australia. “Or you go on the path of development,” Tiley said he told the board, “which is far more sustainable for the sport and the future of the sport, and it’s going to cost, over time, more money, but its return is going to be far greater for everyone. But you know what? It’s going to take a long time.” The good news this week  is that the small pool appears to have produced a very big talent.

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