Tomic stripped of £45,000 prize money for tanking

LONDON: Australia’s Bernard Tomic was stripped of his entire £45,000 ($56,600) Wimbledon prize money on Thursday for tanking in his first round match which was over in just 58 minutes.The controversial Tomic, who has previously been accused of not trying in his career, lost 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 to France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Tuesday. “It is the opinion of the referee that the performance of Bernard Tomic in his first round match against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga did not meet the required professional standards,” the All England Club said in a statement.“Therefore he has been fined the maximum amount of £45,000 which will be deducted from prize money.” The best-of-five-sets match against Tsonga was the shortest men’s match at the tournament so far and the second quickest overall after Elise Mertens’ 48-minute win over Fiona Ferro in the best-of-three women’s event.“I think I played as best as I could. It’s just I played terrible,” said the world number 96 Tomic, who was a top 20 player in 2011 when he reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon. Since then, he has often been dubbed ‘Tomic the Tank Engine’ by a critical Australian media.When he was asked if he was happy with the effort he was making on court at Wimbledon, he snapped: “Next question” and refused to answer other questions. Tomic has run foul of the Wimbledon authorities in the past. Two years ago, he was fined after admitting he had faked an injury and complained of being bored in defeat to Germany’s Mischa Zverev.

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