Tennis Australia said Tuesday it will contact troubled star Bernard Tomic in the next week to “clear the air” and hopes to have him back on-side for September’s Davis Cup semi-final.
President Steve Healy said TA was concerned about the 22-year-old following his arrest in Miami last week for failing to follow police orders over a raucous penthouse party.
It came on the eve of Australia’s ultimately successful Davis Cup quarter-final tie against Kazakhstan, from which Tomic was dumped after a tirade against Australian tennis administrators following his Wimbledon exit.
“We want to offer Bernard the opportunity to raise the issues he has raised, so we can address those with him,” Healy told reporters.
“We think the criticisms are unjustified — he needs to hear that. He needs to get some detail, and we want to bring him back into the fold.
“I think the important thing to understand is he’s had fantastic support from Tennis Australia and we want him to understand and appreciate that and then welcome him back into Davis Cup.”
Tomic is currently in Colombia preparing to defend his Claro Open ATP title, which Healy conceded would make a face-to-face meeting difficult.
“But we want to take those issues off the table,” he said, adding that he hoped to resolve the issues quickly, but said it was mostly out of TA’s hands.
“To a large extent, it depends on how Bernard reacts,” he added.
“We want to get Bernard and we want to have a chat to clear the air with those issues and get him back hopefully for the semi-final if possible.”
Tomic created headlines when he lashed out at TA and tennis official Pat Rafter at a post-match Wimbledon news conference this month, accusing the governing body of penny-pinching and claiming he had been charged for practising on their courts in Brisbane this year.
He also insulted former Davis Cup captain Rafter, one of the country’s sporting icons.
Davis Cup captain Wally Masur said on Sunday he was confident of having Tomic back in his team for the away semi-final tie with Great Britain on September 18-20.