Bernard Tomic is confident he can sufficiently recover from his exhausting Australian Open start to see off Sam Querrey on Wednesday night and remain on track for a blockbuster showdown with Roger Federer.
Tomic admitted he would have to scrap his summer routine of hitting the treadmill post-match for extra conditioning after battling intense heat for more than four hours in his five-set first-round comeback win over Fernando Verdasco.
"Yeah, I'm going to stop that for sure, have a bit of a rest. I think I deserve a rest," he said.
"It was probably the toughest five-set match that I've ever played."
But the 19-year-old's father and coach John Tomic said his son would have no trouble backing up after spending the summer peaking for his first home grand slam tilt as Australian number one.
"He'll be okay. He has a good team around him," he said.
Tomic was hoping his evening schedule would offer friendlier conditions than the sapping 30-plus temperatures he faced against Verdasco for his first-time meeting with Querrey, a former Queen's Club champion and world number 17 but now ranked 95th following elbow surgery last year.
"I would love to play when it's a bit cooler," Tomic said.
"I play Sam now, which is a good match. He's not a left-hander, so it's a bit easier in a way.
"It's tough when Fernando gets that ball to my backhand. It's almost impossible to out-rally him.
"Different opponent now. Night or day."
The 19-year-old Wimbledon quarter-finalist looked down and out after falling behind two sets to love to Verdasco, but admitted to foxing his seasoned opponent early in the third set.
"I had a feeling he knew I was going to go away. I eased off and seemed (like) I didn't care," Tomic said.
"He thought he was going to win that third set and when the right time came, I broke him.
"I knew if I lifted my game early, he would have lifted as well and he wouldn't have let go.
"I pretended a little bit in the first few games in that third set to not be there as mentally, but in a way to still be there."
Should he beat Querrey, Tomic would likely face world number 13 Alexandr Dolgopolov on Friday.
But Ukraine's 2011 quarter-finalist conceded after struggling through his own five-set first-round victory that he was worried that a blood condition he suffers from had "raised its head at the worst possible time".
"I hope it's not that, just that something else is wrong with my body," Dolgopolov said after recovering from two sets down to defeat Australian wildcard Greg Jones.
"I was breathing hard because my heart was going too fast and I had no power to play.
"There's nothing much I can do. My tennis isn't the concern for my next match - it's my health."
AAP
Tags: sport, tennis, australian-open, australia, vic, melbourne-3000 First posted January 17, 2012 08:47:05
No comments:
Post a Comment