Tennis Australia last week apologised for a typo in an email listing Bernard Tomic’s next tournament as the “Hall of Shame Tennis Championships”.
Thanks to the player’s most recent antics, though, that inadvertent “clerical” error now seems prophetic.
Already boasting a long list of misdemeanours, Tomic went ahead and added another unsavoury chapter – the Australian was arrested in Miami last week after a raucous party in his hotel room.
According to media reports, Tomic refused to turn down the volume in his penthouse despite repeated requests from the hotel security guards, who were then forced to order him to leave.
Tomic, 22, ignored those instructions and police had to be called in, but he refused to heed their call as well and had to be arrested, charged with resisting arrest and trespassing.
The incident has again highlighted two crucial faults in Tomic’s personality – his failure to heed well-meaning advice and his inability to understand what is good for him.
But probably the biggest problem is his refusal to comprehend the seriousness of his transgressions.
Tomic claimed he was “asleep on several occasions when they complained at first” as he offered an apology, but then dismissed the incident as “just a noise complaint”.
Yes, it was “just a noise complaint”, but his refusal to listen to the complaints led to his arrest and could hurt his chances of getting a US visa in the future.
He could have done without such an incident given the events over the previous two weeks.
Partying into the early hours of the morning a day after an embarrassing first-round, 6-3, 7-5 defeat to a world No 156 (compatriot John-Patrick Smith) and getting arrested for it, is not a great advertisement for his commitment to the sport.
Particularly so after Tennis Australia’s decision to dump him, the country’s highest-ranked player, from the Davis Cup team.
Questions over Tomic’s commitment are not new. He has been accused of tanking matches (remember his loss to Andy Roddick at the 2012 US Open?), and last year in Miami, he lost 6-0, 6-1 to Jarko Nieminen in what is, at 28 minutes and 20 seconds, the shortest match ever played on the ATP Tour.
Tomic has also been in trouble with the law before – when he got into a fight with a friend as they celebrated his 20th birthday at a spa and for speeding in his flashy cars (his licence was suspended once).
The youngest winner of the Australian Open Junior Boys’ Championships in the Open era (at age 15 in 2008), Tomic failed to mend his ways after those incidents and he is unlikely to change after this latest episode.
Even his supporters are running out of excuses. Tomic, clearly, is not a rebellious young Lleyton Hewitt or Roger Federer, but sadly more of a Mario Balotelli, hell bent on wasting his talent.
arizvi@thenational.ae
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Pataal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
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Origin
Dan Brown
Doubleday
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
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The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
