John Isner of the United States serves to Australia’s Bernard Tomic during their Davis Cup singles match in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, March 6, 2016.
Advertisement
Tomic will take on top-ranked American John Isner on Sunday, with Australia trailing 2-1 after the U.S. won the doubles in their World Group first round tie on Saturday.
But Tomic suggested during and after his match against Isner that he wasn’t convinced about Kyrgios’ illness.
World number 24 Sock held firm to take the match into a fourth but also dropped his level in the heat and Tomic captured the decisive break in the ninth game.
Former world No. 1 Hewitt, who retired six weeks ago at the Australian Open, replaced Sam Groth as John Peers’s doubles partner and dragged Australia back from two sets down with an inspired returning game on the temporary grass court at Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. The line-up is subject to change.
Australia’s two leading stars Bernard Tomic and Nick Kyrgios are at odds forcing new captain Lleyton Hewitt into a peacemaking role after an extraordinary post-script to Australia’s Davis Cup loss to the United States on Sunday.
“I had to sit down and try and come up with the best possible plan without using Nick then”.
Kyrgios has since voiced his frustration via Twitter, with the messages seemingly aimed at Tomic. “If it wasn’t Davis Cup, I would’ve pulled out… but I pushed through”.
“It looks pretty comprehensive but at 0-40 (at one point in the first set), I was essentially facing three sets points there”, Isner said during his press conference, “(But) I played a very solid tiebreaker”.
“While the notes in the ITF database did include the reversal of choice for the next two subsequent ties, it did not specify the surface requirement for the next tie now being played in Australia”, the ITF’s Barbara Travers said in a statement.
“We knew it was going to be very hard”, said Courier, whose team will face Croatia or Belgium in the last eight in July.
But a bigger fight is brewing in Australia’s tennis ranks with Tomic turning on Kyrgios for sitting out the tie with a virus.
Tomic said he was troubled by an ongoing wrist problem and would have withdrawn from any other tournament.
“I’ll be honest with you now, he told me he’s playing Indian Wells”.
Tomic was kicked off the team last year for a second time in his career after publicly criticising top Australian tennis officials at Wimbledon last year.
Hewitt said he didn’t doubt that Kyrgios was ill and he was ruled out by team’s medical staff.
“There’s no doubt he was sick”. “They’ve played awfully well and we feel confident in them”.
Advertisement
It completed a big weekend for Isner, who cruised to a straight-sets win over Sam Groth in Friday’s opening singles before trumping Tomic on the Australians’ choice of a grass surface.
