by Lisa-Marie Burrows
It was always going to be a difficult mountain to climb, but climb it and conquer it 19 year old teenager, Tomic, did in a marathon match against world No. 24, Fernando Verdasco, lasting 4 hours and 19 minutes on Rod Laver Arena in front of his home crowd.
A Grand Slam would not be a Grand Slam without a consequential ‘upset’ which saw the first ATP seed crash out on the opening day. First round challenges are inevitable, however for Verdasco, he was playing not only against the break through teenager, but also against a very excited home crowd. A year ago, Tomic was ranked No. 208, fast-forward a year, he is now No. 37 in the world.
All seemed to be going well for the 22nd seed sporting a bright fluorescent yellow and orange adidas outfit, as he won the first two sets 6-4, 7-6, as the Australian looked down and out, but despite the hot conditions, the rising talent hit back when his groundstrokes solidified, whilst Verdasco’s seemed to fall apart, which resulted in Tomic snatching the final three sets 6-4, 6-2 and 7-5.
A contributing factor to the momentum on court and turnaround in the score line was largely due to Verdasco encompassing more unforced errors into his game towards the latter stages of the match, which proved costly. Tomic took advantage of this and was far more consistent in the third set, enabling him to battle his way back into the match.
Much has been said and a lot has been written about Tomic and in his third five set match in his young career, for the second time, he has come from two sets down to win, despite looking the likely loser.
In his on court interview with Jim Courier, the young survivor shared his thoughts on his victory:
“Things fell down and I don’t know how I found the energy to live, but I thank the crowd.”
Tomic next plays American Sam Querrey, who dispatched of France’s Kenny De Schepper in straight sets earlier in the day.
Lisa-Marie Burrows is a qualified LTA Community Tennis Coach from England and a trainee sports journalist, in the final stages of completion of her course, enabling her to put her passion and enthusiasm for tennis into words and write articles about the events on the WTA and ATP Tours. She has taken great pleasure in traveling across Europe to watch tennis and cover the events, most recently the Davis Cup tie between Spain and France and the Valencia Open 500 tournament. Lisa-Marie is a member of the International Press Association and a contributing journalist for its online magazine, IMPress. She has contributed articles for various leading websites including www.tennisscoop.co.uk,www.olympictennis.net and most recently for www.tennisgrandstand,com andwww.worldtennismagazine.com. Lisa-Marie operates her tennis website called Tennis News and Views where you can read her reports and updates for the latest tennis information and keep up to date with the news on Twitter @TennisNewsViews.