Bernard Tomic revealed his father, John, who was arrested for assault in Madrid for allegedly head-butting his son’s hitting partner Thomas Drouet and is banned from entering Roland Garros, is in fact in Paris and remains his coach and an integral part of his team.
Speaking in a press conference following his retirement in the third set against Victor Hanescu in the opening round on Tuesday, Bernard wanted to set the record straight regarding his father’s involvement with his tennis, especially after Drouet had claimed that John Tomic had actually assaulted his own son during a practice session in Monte Carlo.
“I'd like to say some things before you guys ask me about them obviously involving my father,” Bernard stated before asking the press not to question him on the topic. “He's here right now in Paris, so he's still working with me, he's still my dad, he's still my coach, and I love him a lot.
“Involving the incidents that happened, I don't want to talk about it a lot or at all, I should say. And it's a very difficult thing for me to put my words into that…
“My dad's still my coach, and he'll always be, because I grew up with him and he knows me better than everyone else.”
Bernard, currently ranked 61 in the world, was not expected to appear at the French Open after his father had indicated the young Australian was mentally not up for it, but the 20-year-old former Wimbledon quarter-finalist ended up making the trip up to Paris from his base in Monaco.
He explained that he suffered an unexpected muscle tear in his right leg at the beginning of his match against Hanescu, who ironically had benefitted from a Bernard retirement in the first round in Dubai last February.
Bernard received medical treatment on his leg after the first three games of the match, when he was leading 2-1 with a break, but he was clearly struggling against the Romanian after that and was broken by Hanescu to love in the eighth game and again in the 12th to lose the first set 5-7, dumping a forehand into the net.
The second set went to a tiebreak but rain interrupted play after the first point was played. After a lengthy rain break, the players returned only for Hanescu to take the tiebreak and despite putting up a fight, Bernard found himself two sets to love down.
When Hanescu got a service break in the third game of the third set, the match game to an abrupt end as Bernard chose to retire but was oddly smiling and chatting with his opponent. The Australian stopped to sign autographs before getting off the court.
“It's very unlucky,” said Bernard, who allowed the press to question him only about the match. “I prepared very good to come play here, and the second point I felt my leg sort of tear and didn't know what it was. It was very strange. I never felt this pain before.
“ I played on it for almost an hour and a half till the second set, till the rain came, and then found out when I went into the room that I did tear my muscle.
“I will have to pull out of doubles, as well. Sucks, I know,” he said amidst laughter.
Bernard said it is not a serious injury and should only keep him off the courts for one or two weeks. His grass court schedule remains the same, Queen’s Eastbourne then Wimbledon.
“So I'm going to try as much as I can to recover. I've got grass coming up, and it's going to be important for me to feel 100 per cent to play on my favourite surface,” he added.
Bernard said the incident involving his father did not affect his French Open preparation much and that he hadn’t thought about it in the past week.
“I'm the type of guy where I can sort of let these things sort of go. I was feeling fine. I mean, the last two weeks, I was training well, playing well, didn't think a lot about it, was not worried,” he says.
He does however believe he will be adding someone to his team to “help my dad sort of” soon. While he did not reveal who were the candidates for the job, Bernard hinted his choice could be quite a surprise.
He signed off saying: “I have a choice of two or three people now. I will decide that with my dad over the next week, and who knows? Maybe you'll see someone you don't expect."
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