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Daily Dispatch: Tomic Berated by Aussie Davis Cup Coach

18 September, 2012

Roger Federer’s comments from Davis Cup about being “wounded” and needing a break caused a minor uproar in the tennis community, but they shouldn’t have. After all, Federer said he was “completely beat up” at the same time last year during Switzerland’s Davis Cup tie against Australia. Federer needing a post-US Open break to recover from a grueling summer schedule is completely routine for the World No. 1.

Happy birthday to “Tom“ Berdych, who turned 27 today. The social media maven Berdych celebrated his own birthday in a predictably hilarious manner on Facebook.

According to Vladas Lasitskas, Vera Zvonareva has decided to shut her 2012 season down after the Olympics.

In very strange news, someone placed a cardboard cutout of Boris Becker in the middle of a road in Germany:

“He wouldn’t have won Wimbledon like that,” Triphahn said of the crippled cutout of the now 44-year-old tennis player.

Rafa told Spanish Vanity Fair that if he were to be reincarnated, he’d like come back as himself.

In the awkward headline department, UK’s Marketing Magazine takes the cake with, “Adidas gives Andy Murray new shorts after balls pop out.”

Clarin.com reports that Juan Martin del Potro will be out for at least a month because of the left wrist injury that has plagued the World No. 8. He will immobilize it for 10 days, and then undergo about three weeks of treatment.

Despite this report, which confirms that del Potro should not have played for Argentina this weekend, del Potro faced much scrutiny for the perceived icy relationship between him and the Argentinian team, and for his decision to withdraw from his scheduled match against Berdych. Per Tennis.com:

Instead of joining the team on Monday, he practiced for two days in Buenos Aires with his private coach rather than joining the team in Parque Roca.

The Argentine journalist Marcos Zugasti reported that even in Parque Roca, del Potro insisted that he only hit with sparring partner Diego Schwartzman, and never interacted with any other player on court and practically not at all off the court.

The newspaper ”La Nacion,” citing an unnamed source, said that del Potro told captain Martin Jaite and coach Mariano Zabelata that, “I’ll play but if something happens to me, it’s your fault.”

It’s unfortunate to see a player who has missed months at a time for similar injuries face so much criticism for withdrawing from a match he shouldn’t have been scheduled to play in the first place. We wish him a speedy recovery.

The Brisbane Times reports that Australian Davis Cup coach Tony Roche was berating Bernard Tomic during his match against Florian Mayer. The 19-year-old fell in straight sets to Mayer, despite Tomic’s best efforts.

Tomic has received much criticism (much of it deserved) regarding his performance against Andy Roddick at the US Open, including from Davis Cup captain Pat Rafter. But Tomic played as well as he could against Mayer, and has a commendable 8-2 career record in Davis Cup singles, his only losses coming to Mayer and Federer, both better players than the World No. 42.

It’s important for Tomic to understand he needs to develop a strong work ethic, but berating a 19-year-old for not being able to beat a player who’s far more accomplished than him is just unfair. Tomic may need guidance on how to handle his professional tennis career, but not that kind of guidance.

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