Here are a couple of pics that have been making their way around the interwebz the last day or so.
We efforted to find the original source; apparently a “friend” of Bernard Tomic’s (some friend!) posted them on Tumblr, and subsequently deleted them. At least according to that Tumblr poster. But nothing is ever erased from cyberspace, so we’re reproducing them here.
Rehabbing Aussie Bernard Tomic was being straight up after his embarrassing (and record-setting) first-round loss to Jarkko Nieminen of Finland at the Sony Open when he said he wanted to come down to Miami and see some friends, and play the tournament.
Who knew one of those friends was our own Genie Bouchard?
It’s wasn’t a solo date or anything; as you can see from the pic below (which appears to be a “group selfie” taken by Fernando Verdasco), there was quite a group of them.
We have to say on the boy-girl ratio: You go, girl!
The two aren’t strangers; they met and clearly hit it off at Hopman Cup in January (if they didn’t already know each other), and were planning to play mixed doubles together at the Australian Open before Tomic retired from his first-round match against Rafael Nadal, and subsequently underwent double hip surgery.
He (and his crutches) were in Bouchard’s player’s box, along with Milos Raonic, for her semifinal match against Li Na.
Bouchard also was eliminated from the Sony Open in her first match, against Elina Svitolina of Ukraine. So there was some time to kick back.
She posted a pic of herself on the jet-ski on her official Facebook page. But she didn’t post these 🙂
There’s some buzz about it – mostly along the lines of, “What’s she doing hanging out with that guy?” Bad influence. yada yada yada.
But the girl’s 20 years old, she’s got a little unexpected time off in Miami, and she’s kicking back. It’s not like the U.S.-underage Bouchard was photographed downing tequila shots in some South Beach clue or anything.
If anything, Tomic’s lucky she’ll give him the time of day. Maybe some of her work ethic, drive and tennis ambition will rub off on him.
Bouchard should tell him, though, that he looks like a hoser in the group pic because everyone else took off their shades, while he looks like an off-duty California Highway Patrol cop or something. 🙂