Tomic the Tank Engine Strikes Again

Serial quitter Bernard Tomic quits Australian Open Qualifying

Serial Quitter Bernard Tomic was belted out of Qualifying for the 2022 Australian Open of Tennis earlier this week by Roman Safiullin, losing 6–1, 6–4 in just 57 minutes.

According to the ABC, Trailing 1–2 in the second set, Tomic told the umpire at the change-over that he thought he had Covid-19.

“I’m sure in the next two days I will test positive, I’m telling you,” the 29-year-old said from his chair.

“I’ll buy you dinner if I don’t test positive in three days, otherwise you buy me dinner.”

Digging deep into his bag of quitting tricks, Tomic played the “Freedumb” card and questioned the umpire about why there was no official PCR testing for players, with only a rapid test being required.

“They’re allowing players to come on court with rapid tests in their room, c’mon … no official PCR testing,” he said.

After a brief check from the trainer, who couldn’t confirm or deny that Tomic had Covid-19, Safiullin then toweled the Serial Quitter up in just 23 minutes.

Tomic has a long history of quitting matches when the going gets tough. In 2017 he most famously tanked a first-round match at Wimbledon, claiming later that he faked an injury because he was “bored with the tournament”, earning him the nickname “Tomic the Tank Engine”. Again at Wimbledon in 2019, he was fined £45,000 by the match referee for not meeting the “required professional standard” after reversing his racket on match point against Joe-Wilfried Tsonga.

Tomic had headed to qualifying for the Australian Open accompanied by his coach and his “Social Media Director”. On his umpteenth comeback to the sport, Tomic had not played an ATP tournament match since September 2021 and is now ranked 257th in the world.

Looking unfit and overweight it is clear that Tomic should have spent more time playing tennis and less time on social media, or more importantly, maybe he just should have gotten vaccinated?

More to come….

DC

*At the time of writing there has been no confirmation as to whether Tomic has covid-19, or who paid for dinner.