Swimmer James Magnussen, left, watches good mate Bernard Tomic at the Sydney International. Source: Getty Images
BERNARD Tomic nominated Olympic swimmer James Magnussen as his lucky charm as his unbeaten summer run continued in the semi-finals of the Sydney International yesterday.
Tomic won through to his first ATP Tour final, where he will play South African Kevin Anderson tonight. As he did so, he turned to Magnussen in his supporters' box on Ken Rosewall Arena and asked him to come back one more time.
"He's a bit of a lucky charm isn't he?" Tomic said yesterday after defeating Italy's Andreas Seppi 7-6 (12-10) 6-4 in 40C on-court heat.
He and Magnussen first met on the Gold Coast, where the world 100m champion was taking part in a pre-London swimming camp. They shared more good times in the Olympic Village, with Tomic part of the Australian tennis team.
It's a mateship that has travelled from Southport to London to Sydney and now to Melbourne.
"I'm sure he'll come down for a few days, but he's got a swim meet in Perth first," Tomic said. "It's great to have him in the box. He's a great fellow, a good person."
But first Tomic must find a way to absorb the power of the 203cm Anderson's serves in tonight's final. Tomic last year used the Kooyong Classic exhibition event as his lead-in event to the Open, but playing for rankings points seems to have made a difference.
"It's the start for me. Looking at other tournaments, Kooyong was very different. Now this is my actual first tournament that I had my eyes on," he said. "I prepared just to do well and peak at tournaments where I need to play well, and that's what I'm doing.
"Playing well in Perth has given me a lot confidence, and beating Novak was huge as well," he added, referring to his defeat of Novak Djokovic at the Hopman Cup.
He and Anderson have met once before, with Tomic the winner in the first round at the Shanghai Masters in October last year.
Anderson is also on a roll, becoming the first South African to make the Sydney final in the tournament's 129-year history. "The tournament has been going on for a while. There has been some very good South Africans in the past, obviously most notably (former top-10) Wayne Ferreira," Anderson said.
"So hopefully I'll be able to take it one step further."
Tomic is the first Australian into the men's final since Chris Guccione lost to Russian Dmitry Tursunov in 2008. The last local champion was Lleyton Hewitt in 2005. The last 20-year-old to win the Sydney International was a swash-buckling Swiss by the name of Roger Federer in 2002.
And the 196cm Tomic will be sitting tall in the saddle on his way to his fifth Australian Open.
He is on a seven-match winning streak that has included world No 1 Djokovic among his three wins at the Hopman Cup in Perth and defending Sydney champion Jarkko Nieminen and two seeded players, Florian Mayer (5th) and Seppi (3rd) in his Sydney march.
"The tennis I've been playing now, if I can win tomorrow, it's different approaching the Australian Open," Tomic said.
His ranking also gets a boost. He dropped to No 64 in the world by not defending his Brisbane points last week. But regardless of tonight's result, he will be back inside the top 50 and could climb to No 43 with a win over Anderson.
No comments:
Post a Comment