{"id":5238,"date":"2013-01-03T15:50:08","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T07:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=5238"},"modified":"2013-01-03T15:50:08","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T07:50:08","slug":"djokovic-predicts-bright-future-for-tomic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2013\/01\/03\/djokovic-predicts-bright-future-for-tomic","title":{"rendered":"Djokovic predicts bright future for Tomic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

World No.1 Novak Djokovic predicts Australian Bernard Tomic will become a force on the men\u2019s tour in the not-too-distant future, but says the rising star needs to become an anywhere, anytime player first.<\/p>\n

Djokovic felt the full brunt of Tomic\u2019s talents in a shock 6-4 6-4 loss to the 20-year-old at the Hopman Cup on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Tomic was at his sizzling best during the 84-minute romp, unleashing 25 winners to 12 to notch his second career win over Djokovic, with his first triumph coming during a light-hearted exhibition match in 2010.<\/p>\n

A gruelling fitness campaign at the end of last season has left Tomic in the best shape of his life.<\/p>\n

But a more mature mindset has also benefited Tomic, who was dogged by on and off-court controversies in 2012.<\/p>\n

Djokovic predicted a bright future for Tomic, but said the Queenslander\u2019s next challenge was to produce the goods on a more consistent basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very talented and tactically plays very well for somebody his age,\u201d Djokovic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut obviously for him it\u2019s important to be consistently successful throughout the whole year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean he has been playing really well in Australia the last few years but he wasn\u2019t managing to maintain that level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s up to him to see how he can adjust to many different surfaces. But he definitely has the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a great touch and he can play equally well in defence and offence, so he has this great transition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see he physically got stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe moves well for his size and has a good serve. So it\u2019s just about the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomic, who was beaten by Djokovic during the quarter-finals of Wimbledon in 2011, said the pain he went through during his gruelling off-season fitness campaign was well worth it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing a lot of stuff. A lot more hours than I\u2019ve ever been doing,\u201d Tomic said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back on it, it was hard. But hard work does pay off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve also been working on my head a lot and trying to focus in between points.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe past year, on the court, was very difficult for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lack concentration. I play really well for a few sets and then lose it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m happy I\u2019m not losing my focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ve also improved a lot in my movement and my serve especially.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia suffered a 2-1 loss to Serbia on Wednesday, and will need to beat Italy\u2019s pairing of Andreas Seppi and Francesca Schiavone on Thursday night to have any chance of reaching Saturday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World No.1 Novak Djokovic predicts Australian Bernard Tomic will become a force on the men\u2019s tour in the not-too-distant future, but says the rising star needs to become an anywhere, anytime player first. Djokovic felt the full brunt of Tomic\u2019s talents in a shock 6-4 6-4 loss to the 20-year-old at the Hopman Cup on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}