Tomic walking in footsteps of his tennis idols

Australian teenager Bernard Tomic is living the life of his heroes after blazing through to the Wimbledon quarter-finals with a straight-sets hammering of Xavier Malisse.

The 18-year-old qualifier needed just an hour and 21 minutes to beat the Belgian 6-1 7-5 6-4 on Court 18 yesterday to move into the last eight – his best grand slam performance. Only Boris Becker, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe have reached the same stage of Wimbledon at a younger age.

Tomic, born in Germany to Bosnian and Croatian parents, moved to Australia when he was two and started playing when he was seven.

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When he was eight, Croatia’s Goran Ivanisevic won Wimbledon as a qualifier, with fellow Australians Lleyton Hewitt and Mark Philippoussis getting to the final in the two subsequent years and, in Hewitt’s case, winning it.

Tomic idolised all three, along with a number of other Wimbledon greats, and always believed if he carried on with his passion for the game he could one day end up mirroring their achievements. “I looked up to Goran, and I looked up to Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras,” he said. “Then Roger Federer took over and started dominating. I had a few idols when I was young. I looked up to Roger when he won his first Wimbledon here and beat Philippoussis.

“Ever since that, the love of the game has always been there. Ever since I was young, I supported Lleyton when he was playing at Wimbledon, playing finals and winning. It told me that one day, maybe I could be here competing at this level.”

That level was something close to perfection yesterday, as he followed up his drubbing of fifth seed Robin Soderling on Saturday with a similarly comprehensive win over Malisse, ranked 116 places above him in the world.

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Malisse was testy throughout. He was unhappy with the stringing on his racquets, even going as far as suggesting they had been strung by an Australian, and took issue with a number of line calls.

Second seed Novak Djokovic set up a mouthwatering quarter-final tie with Tomic after breezing past Michael Llodra in straight sets. Two days after his wobble against Marcos Baghdatis, Djokovic looked back to his best, delivering a punishing 6-3 6-3 6-3 victory in a little more than 90 minutes.

Should he produce the same performance against Tomic as he did yesterday, there is little to suggest Djokovic will be defeated by the 18-year-old, who doubles up as his practice partner.

The Serb lost his cool during his thrilling encounter with Baghdatis on Saturday evening, smashing his racquet on Centre Court, but yesterday he was calmness personified throughout.

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