Bernard Tomic allegedly boasted of his riches to rival Andres Amade prior to the bizarre scenes which saw him escorted from the crowd for heckling the Ecuadorean during his final against Damir Dzuhmur in the Santa Domingo Challenger last weekend.
The former Wimbledon quarterfinalist, who is attempting to rebuild his career on the lower rungs of the professional tour, was accompanied from the final by officials after sledging Amade during the match.
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But the tension between the two begin a few days earlier after Amade defeated Tomic, who sits at 234 on a live rankings estimate and is within range of being able to play Australian Open qualifying next year, in a quarterfinal of the $243,000 Challenger event.
Tennis publication Clay reports that the one-time world No.17 approached his rival after the match and again at breakfast the following morning to advise him he would bring dozens of people to barrack against him in his next match.
The magazine quotes a friend of Amade named Luis Fernando Amador, who provided a radio interview to KC Tenis after witnessing the incident.
“I met Andy after the match and he said ‘Tomic is crazy. In the locker room he started insulting me and saying worse things than what he said on the court,’” Amador said on the radio show KC Tenis.
“After the match, Tomic began to insult him in English and told Andy ‘You’re a cheater. You’re a bad person. Now that you’re into the semi-finals, you’re going to have $7,000 … I have $700,000’. Then he warned that he was going to arrive at the next match with 30 people.”
Tomic, who once bragged about “counting his millions” after a failed attempt to qualify for the Australian Open in 2018, has won just over $65,000 in prize money this year in a season spent entirely on either the ATP Challenger Tour or lower ITF World Tour.
He won an ITF25 – effectively a US$25,000 tournament – in February and has reached a semifinal on the Challenger Tour this year.
Now 31, Tomic is the winner of four AT Tour titles and almost $9.5 million in prize money throughout a career that began in 2008 when, as a 15-year-old, he won an opening round match in qualifying at the Australian Open.
In New York, seven Australians have progressed to the final round of qualifying for the US Open beginning on Monday.
The Australian contingent, which is headed by world No.10 Alex de Minaur, currently features 11 men and three women, but that could swell depending on results on Friday at Flushing Meadows.
Promising teenager Maya Joint and veteran Arina Rodionova will push their bids for a main draw slot alongside compatriots Destanee Aiava, Priscilla Hon, Kimberly Birrell and Tahlia Gibson.
Adelaide’s Li Tu is the sole Australian man from the three entrants in the qualifying event still alive in the draw.
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