HONESTY — IT’S NOT ALWAYS THE BEST POLICY, BERNIE ...

I can’t understand why Tomic’s pay was docked — his press conference was an excellent performance

HONESTY is supposed to be a virtue, right? The best policy?

Not if you are rock star Gold Coast tennis player Bernard Tomic, are seated before the world sporting press at the hallowed, history-laden, manicured lawn courts of Wimbledon and you have just lost in a pretty ordinary, lacklustre display in the first round.

Then honesty, as the 24year-old pro tour veteran has discovered in the past 48 hours, is not the smart play.

In that press conference to end all press conferences this week, Tomic reflected on his momentary funk with the sport and how he’d been bored on court at times during the loss and, yes, it wasn’t the first time.

Motivation? He was struggling to find it. Fourth round, first round? It made no difference, he couldn’t care less, he said.

It was all looking the same for ponderous Bernie.

Gonna take a break? Nah, I like my life, he reckoned.

He answered every question about as candidly as any professional sportsperson has ever answered media questions.

It was fascinating viewing. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had stood up at the finish, leapt onto the desk and declared “Are you not entertained?!”

He was paid a touch under $64,000 in first round prizemoney for the loss – some goof calculated he got about $900 a minute for the time he was on court (never mind the grinding hours of his youth spent busting his butt training here in Southport under the steely gaze of adults pushing him along). I thought they should have paid him another $64,000 for the seven-minute presser.

It was an excellent performance. Way better than the 84-minute match.

But they didn’t of course. The powers that be at the All England Club, the sacred home of tennis, actually docked his pay almost $20,000. The knobs.

And now his racquet sponsor Head have gone and dumped him too. They didn’t drop Russian star Maria Sharapova after she was temporarily banned for actually cheating.

But sorry Bernie, you cannot have a public existential crisis – and that is surely what this is – and expect support. Shame on Head, I say. Has a player ever spoken so candidly and openly about what the other players probably think from time to time but never actually admit? I doubt it.

His comments were w widely panned. Luminary Martina Navratilova said get a new job. But fellow great Mats Wilander found it refreshing: “He is just trying to explain how he feels. Everybody gets bored or emotionally flat sometimes but most players are not so honest. They have sponsors that need to be happy. I really appreciate he was honest about it.”

I’m with Wilander. Sport is full of carbon copy, cookie-cutter, say-the-rightthing, mind-numbing bores.

In rugby circles, there was a joke a few years ago about the regular monosyllabic, meaningless banality of post-match press conferences. The joke went you could ask any player how a game was, win or lose, and they’d sum it up thus: ‘Game of two halves, the opposition came out firing, proud of the boys and rugby was the winner on the day.’ Boring! Even Tomic admitted the way he was on court this week – “going through the motions” – was “no good”.

But he also said believes he can find the spark again. Let’s hope so.

Because with his languid unorthodox game, that’s just as entertaining.

ryan.keen@news.com.au