FILE—Bernard Tomic of Australia (L) and Novak Djokovic of Serbia smile after their men’s singles quarter-final match at the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament in Shanghai on October 16, 2015. AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE / AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE
World number one Novak Djokovic has encouraged troubled Australian star Bernard Tomic to take his profession more seriously after he spectacularly gave up in losing to Fabio Fognini at the Madrid Masters.
Tomic held his racquet the wrong way round and made no attempt to return Fognini’s serve in bowing out in the first round in the Spanish capital on Tuesday.
However, he compounded his behavior with outspoken comments claiming he didn’t need to care about losing given the wealth he had amassed already in his short career.
“I don’t care about that match point,” he told News Corp Australia.
“Would you care if you were 23 and worth over $10 million?”
Djokovic has been a regular practice partner for Tomic and believes he is capable of far more than his current ranking of 22nd in the world.
“I’ve seen what he has done. It’s not right and I hope he realizes that,” said the 11-time Grand Slam champion.
“The sooner the better for him because he is still relatively young and he can definitely be a better player and better ranked than he is now.
“Everybody knows that. I think he knows that, but he doesn’t seem to really get things the right way off the court.
“I’m just hoping for him, because over the last couple of years I got to know him better and he’s a good guy, he’s a good person, but he’s just failing to be committed to this sport as it is required.
“Many things that he says are not well thought from his side. He gets emotional very quickly and things get out of context.”