Tonight Australia will get the measure of Bernard Tomic’s tennis ability against world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, writes Linda Pearce
Ask Pat Rafter about it. Rafter, remember, was the charismatic emerging star whose round-of-16 contest against the great Andre Agassi in 1995 prime-time was promoted like few Australian Open matches before it. Rafter was belted in three sets, the last 6-0. The damage was extensive, the recovery slow. Six months later, having dipped 40 places in the world rankings, Rafter finally won consecutive tour matches again.
Two majors and a stint at No.1 later, Rafter is Australia’s Davis Cup captain, pressed into the job by his old mentor John Newcombe and welcomed by a desperate Tennis Australia as still the best-loved face in Australian tennis, a decade in retirement notwithstanding. The underwear and deodorant salesman will soon have a more demanding job: dealing with the prodigious talent that will tonight feature on Rod Laver Arena against world No.1 Rafael Nadal.
Rafter was involved in the decision to award Bernard Tomic an Open wildcard for the third consecutive year, but also party to the minor wrist-slap that required the occasionally wayward 18-year-old to qualify in Sydney earlier that week. Through the first top-50 wins of Tomic’s career, the second over a discombobulated 31st seed Feliciano Lopez, the result is this: Tomic’s name and face everywhere. Saturday night live. So will the world No.199 handle the hype?
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‘‘He’s a pretty relaxed character in a lot of ways; he’s a very different temperament to what I was, so I think he’ll deal with it pretty well,’’ Rafter said. ‘‘Time will tell. But I don’t think it will affect him. It’s just the way he plays, his attitude, and he’s very relaxed. He looks disinterested, but he’s not. I expect him to deal with it pretty well.’’
Handling the ruthless Nadal will be a different matter, but Tomic watchers know that these are the occasions he likes best. Satellite tournaments, despite the fact he already owns one Challenger title, are not really his thing. As a 16-year-old he was the youngest man ever to win a round at the Australian Open, and last year he pushed eventual semi-finalist Marin Cilic to five late sets in round two. Of his seven career wins at tour level, four have come in his home grand slam, including Thursday’s patient dismemberment of a tortured Lopez.
‘‘Well, Rafa is a different story,’’ the beaten Spaniard said later. ‘‘He’s the No.1 player in the world, and Rafa has so many options when he plays now. It’s going to be very tough for Tomic, but I think for him it’s an incredible opportunity for him to show his game to everyone. It’s going to be a great match for him, it’s very exciting and I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for him.’’
Certainly, he plays a style of game Nadal seldom encounters. Wally Masur has compared the languid former junior star to the Greek god of sleep. Jim Courier sees him as a chess player, with an exceptional tennis IQ. But the praise is not universal; Roger Rasheed among those less enamoured of his ‘‘junky’’ style, describing Tomic as an enigma who will quickly be worked out, and his lack of power exposed.
‘‘He knows when to play the junk, that’s the thing,’’ Rafter counters. ‘‘If he knows when to play it, and he works the other guy out, I don’t care how much junk he plays.’’
Indeed, a common reference is to the ‘‘X factor’’, and former doubles star Allan Stone is one of many who draw comparisons with the cat-and-mouse Scot, Andy Murray. ‘‘I think it’s refreshing that someone can play a bit different and still succeed, because we’re so used to seeing the guys just club the ball from the back of the court,’’ said Stone.
‘‘Subtlety, and touch and feel, and using the court and the angles are disappearing from the game, and he seems to be able to bring that. And for some reason, the guys seem to get a bit nervous playing him: they come in and he just rolls it past them; they stay back and he moves them around, then gives them a few junk balls and all of a sudden he cranks it up and hits it a bit harder, and the ball’s gone past you.’’
That has always been Tomic’s way, a gentle lullaby that catches so many off-guard. He says he can hit the ball hard, ‘‘but I don’t do it a lot of the time. That’s sort of not my game, playing hard. I like to play against players, make ’em miss, sort of thing’’.
Courier, indeed, credits Tomic with seeing angles and possibilities where others do not, whose perspective of the court is different to most. ‘‘He’s a real natural tennis player; unique brand,’’ said the US Davis Cup captain, another to compare Tomic to Murray. There is, however a trade-off. Tomic, he says, ‘‘is very developed mentally as a tennis player — physically, not yet’’.
And therein lies the problem. When Mark Philippoussis famously toppled world No.1 Pete Sampras on that explosive Saturday night in 1996, he was a big teenager with a huge serve and game. Rafter’s fear that Tomic’s movement will be exploited is one shared by former top-20 player Masur, for it is all very well to think a good game, but another to be allowed to implement it by the enforcer attempting to win four slams in a row.
‘‘Rafa will turn it into a physical contest, regardless of what tactics Bernie employs,’’ Masur said on Fox Sports. ‘‘So if you take Bernie out on the track now and take his times against Rafa in the 400 [metres], the 100, there’s a big gap, and I think that’s what’s going to be exposed. I just think it doesn’t matter what tactics he employs, Rafa’s got the wheels to deal with it and he will turn it into physical match, and that’s where we’re going to find out where Bernie is physically.’’
Another retired star, Mark Woodforde, was a little more optimistic, describing tonight’s match as a barometer of where Tomic’s game is at and where it is headed. Nadal will push him around and probe for cracks. And while movement is the most obvious structural issue, Tomic’s serve is not considered to be at the same level of a world-class backhand, for example, or his marvellously innate sense of how to play the game.
''Nadal, against some of the players that he doesn't know much about, he's going to be searching for a weakness, so I think at the start he's just going to be moving Bernard left, right, left, right, hitting into the open court, until he senses a weakness,'' said Woodforde, now a commentator and coach. ''There isn't much weakness there, though, because he's a manipulator of the ball and the spin, so it's going to be interesting. If he can stick with Nadal early, then that's terrific. I think it's not out of the question that Bernard can perhaps sneak a set or two.''
Lopez does not like to talk in terms of sets that might be won, but predicts that if Tomic plays well enough, his chances will come. He ranks the Australian in an emerging quartet that includes European prospects Richard Berankis, Grigor Dimitrov and Milos Raonic - dangerous now, likely to be venomous in the future. The problem tonight is that Nadal has no real weakness, so what was good enough against the third-best Spanish left-hander will be insufficient against the best of the best.
Even so, Rafter is happy to confirm his membership of the fan club of a player he describes as ''absolutely'' Australia's best male prospect since Hewitt, who succeeded Philippoussis as the last local teenager to reach the men's third round. And if the serve-volleying Rafter is at a slight loss to describe how Tomic quite manages it, then one does not have to know the secret to a magician's tricks to enjoy his show.
''I still haven't worked him out yet, I can't work out Bernard's game,'' Rafter smiles. ''It's awkward and he's got such a point of difference, and the other guys playing him don't know what's going on, either. So I think he's got them baffled as well, because he's just incredibly awkward, and he's got sneaky weapons.''
He is also stronger and fitter than last year, taller and five kilograms heavier. He has played a big match on centre court, if not anything on the scale of this one. And so the hype-ometer is at maximum capacity, leaving Tomic to deal with the nerves, the anticipation, as the countdown to his big night out ticks on.
''It's excitement, that's what it is,'' said Tomic, who has practised with Nadal previously, but never played him. ''To get this opportunity the first time in my life, it's different. It's an opportunity that I'm going to take, I think.''
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