For all his flaws and wasted gifts, he surely does not deserve the vilification that has fallen upon himWhen Bernard Tomic announced he was the first player on the ATP tour to self-isolate after showing symptoms of coronavirus, the 27-year-old Australian was not drowned in universal sympathy.The Covid-19 pandemic has loosened the worst and best instincts of humanity and Tomic, who could have been one of the outstanding players of his generation, endured mostly a blizzard of scorn after telling an Australian newspaper on Sunday: “Since Tuesday, Istarted feeling not right. I already had shortness of breath and my immune system was low and run down. I’m currently in Miami and isolated away from everyone, as advised. I’m yet to...
The 2014 finalist was brusque last week at qualifying but she knows the path to a grand slam is littered with pitfallsThe longer the interview went on, the more it seemed that nothing was going to elicit an interesting answer from Eugenie Bouchard. The Canadian had walked off court with an important victory in the bag but it was difficult to tell from her icy demeanour as she responded to questions about her first‑round win at Wimbledon qualifying last Tuesday. There was no hint of joy, no attempt to engage. The interviewer could have revealed that the world was about to end and Bouchard still would have said: “Yeah, well, obviously I’ll just take each apocalypse as it comes,” in...
The tanking of Bernard Tomic and the retirement of Nick Kyrgios at Wimbledon has produced scornful reproach but empathy ought to be the reaction when young people reveal their vulnerability in publicWhen Bernard Tomic, grappling for an elusive sense of purpose in whatever remains of his professional life, slunk out of Wimbledon on day two and later admitted his love of tennis is being drowned by pernicious feelings of ennui, the mind went back to the first time he saw Novak Djokovic standing on the opposite side of the net.The memories of that sun-kissed Centre Court afternoon in 2011 should induce fond nostalgia. At best, however, they are no more than bittersweet and are mostly tinged with the kind of...