Bernard Tomic’s seemingly unending quest to fight his way back into another grand slam main draw has fallen short once again at Flushing Meadows despite one more worthy scrap from the veteran Australian.
The last time the 33-year-old managed to battle into a main draw of a major was at his home Australian Open in 2021.
In the five years since, he has entered 10 more qualifying events in the slams and failed to negotiate his way through any.
Alas for the former teenage wonder boy who got to number 17 in the world a decade ago, that drought continued on Tuesday afternoon, local time, in New York as he fought back in his first-round match against South African Lloyd Harris only to be outplayed in the final stanza.
No-one can possibly fault the effort of world number 179 Tomic, who was once perceived as being a talented but undisciplined figure who did not really care enough about the sport, as he has since battled on in the lower reaches of the game around the world, tirelessly seeking another day in the sun.
Emerson Jones also failed in her bid to advance to the women’s main draw despite a valiant fight. (AAP: Darren England)
But Harris, a former world number 31 himself who is still dangerous even if his ranking has fallen to 139, just had a little too much for the Gold Coast veteran, who staged a second-set fightback before going down 6-2, 5-7, 6-2.
It was the same story for a couple of other Australians in first-round action, as teenager Emerson Jones fought valiantly to peg back Dutch world number 164 Suzan Lamens in a tight second-set tiebreak, only to succumb in the decider 7-5, 6-7 (7-9), 6-2 after two hours and 25 minutes.
With another veteran, Alex Bolt, losing 7-6 (7-3), 7-5 to Spain’s Pablo Llamas Ruiz, it meant that Australia were still looking for their first winner of the week in qualifying after James McCabe’s loss on the opening Monday.
At least one Aussie was guaranteed a place in the second round of qualifying as Storm Hunter took on her friend Maddison Inglis later in the day.
AAP
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