Ah, late summer in New York.
The air is humid, the beers are flowing, and tennis fans are getting into arguments with world-class athletes. The US Open tends to feature one of the more boisterous crowds of the year on the tennis circuit. Wimbledon is a bit buttoned-up, the French Open is, well, the French Open, and though the Aussies can certainly get after it, the atmosphere is more subdued than what you get at Flushing Meadows.
Of course, with a name like Flushing Meadows, it’s difficult to expect a prim and proper evening.
Bernard Tomic got into it with a spectator on Tuesday. As the 17th-seeded Australian was en route to a four-set, first-round defeat to unseeded Damir Dzhumar of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This went a bit beyond the normal profane tirade, though, as Tomic got uncomfortably personal and threatening. It was mostly picked up on camera as well, and might be a bit NSFW:
"Suck my balls", Tomic to an annoying spectator, making Dzumhur stop his service motion. #usopen #tomic pic.twitter.com/VPPqgvtAXD
— Alex Theodoridis (@AlexTheodorid1s) August 30, 2016
"I will put my balls in your mouth" and "I will give you some money to make you feel good". Quotes: Bernard Tomic pic.twitter.com/sxGoyON0MU
— Alex Theodoridis (@AlexTheodorid1s) August 30, 2016
That’s…very bad. Whenever you’re the athlete, hurling Cartman-level insults like “Suck my balls!” and “I will put my balls in your mouth!” back to a fan is probably not the best route to take. Tomic later came to the same realization, or more likely realized it was best for him to at least pretend to come to that realization:
In his press conference, Tomic first expressed some regret at failing to hold up his end of what had been a potential third round match with Kyrgios, then apologised to the target of his gonadal insults.
“I apologised to what I said to him,” Tomic said.
“He definitely baited me the whole set for me to say that. But I do apologise. If there were people around that heard, yeah, that’s all I can say.”
Tomic is no stranger to controversy. At Wimbledon, he dropped the r-word and had to apologize. He also has a weird history of traffic violations, an arrest for trespassing, as well as an incident where he fled police and locked himself inside his home.
There’s a great quote from Justified that would seem to apply to Tomic.
If you run into an a**hole in the morning, you ran into an a**hole. If you run into a**holes all day, you’re the a**hole.
[h/t SB Nation]
