The Tennis Debate: Bernard Tomic needs understanding not scorn

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To only read the headlines from Bernard Tomic's unsettling interview with Australia's Seven Network on Sunday, it would be easy to dismiss it as another display of staggering gaucheness from Australia's Peter Pan of tennis. 

Tomic once again reiterated that he doesn't put in much effort - "I think all my career’s been around 50% and I haven’t really tried" - and primarily plays the sport for the money. 

This from a man who appeared to "tank" - deliberately lose - in his first-round defeat to Mischa Zverev at Wimbledon this month and then said afterwards that he had been "bored" during the match and had faked an injury. In fact so notorious is the 24-year-old's reputation for throwing in the towel that he has earned the sobriquet "Tomic the tank engine".

So far, so objectionable right?

Clearly much of Tomic's behaviour is indefensible, and giving up in matches is cheating both his opponent and paying supporters. 

But Sunday's interview was also a window into the mind of a visibly troubled athlete. In an often excruciating exchange, Tomic said casually that he will never love tennis, and added "I'm just going to go about it as a job."

When asked what advice he would give to his 14-year-old self, he responded: "Don't play tennis. Do something you love and enjoy because it's a grind and it's a tough, tough, tough life."

He then said he felt "trapped" by the sport because he has no other skills and knows he can continue to earn huge riches from it (he has already accrued just under £4m in prize money alone). 

Again, it is understandable that many would struggle to find sympathy for someone complaining that they are being forced to do a highly lucrative and glamorous job. 

But clearly Tomic is struggling with its demands and is growing to resent it, just as Andre Agassi and many others have done before him. Tomic and Agassi also both had overbearing fathers who made it clear early in their childhood that tennis was the path they would follow.

Playing tennis for a living can be a wonderful existence, but it can also be suffocatingly oppressive and requires hours upon hours of practice from a very early age. 

That level of repetition can sap anyone's enthusiasm, and it was painful to watch Tomic being shown footage on Sunday of his younger self saying eagerly that "I love tennis from the ground to the sky. It's my soul." Tomic at this point welled up and was close to tears. 

Forget the money he earns or the job he does, Tomic looks like a man in desperate need of a break to try and refresh himself and rediscover some of the zest he had as a youngster. 

The racket company Head dropped Tomic after his Wimbledon antics, but his behaviour and cries for attention require understanding, not condemnation. 

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