Showing that he’s still just a cocky adolescent Bernard Tomic repeatedly smashed his racket into the courts at Wimbledon as he walked to the net to shake David Goffin’s hand after he was eliminated by the wildcard in the first round.
Wimbledon has called Bernie into their offices and told him they expect him to man up and such behaviour will not be tolerated. During Tomic’s tantrum he caused some damage to court and was subsequently fined $2,500.
Wimbledon spokesman Johnny Perkins said, “A ‘talking-to’, I think would be the wrong word, but we had a word with him. Essentially I think it was ‘this is not really the behaviour we expect, and, more to the point, you have damaged the court’, and we did have to put a bit of filler in it.
It’s two counts: one is it’s damaging the courts for the other competitors, and that’s probably the worst bit. And from our side obviously it’s not a great spectacle, and I’m sure Bernard thinks that as well; that with hindsight he wishes he hadn’t.
If it needs filler then that means it is quite a rut. There’s normal wear and tear, which is scuffing, really, but this put really quite a dent in the surface.”
