A bizarre on-court argument between Bernard Tomic and his girlfriend led to him retiring mid-game during an ATP Challengers event.
The Australian tennis player was competing at the Little Rock Open in the hope of improving his ranking after dropping to number 247 in the world.
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Once ranked number 17 in the world, the 31-year-old was facing Japan’s Yuta Shimizu in Arkansas, but appeared distracted on court.
After going 6-1 down in the first set, Tomic appeared unhappy and complained of illness on numerous occasions leading to him receiving medical attention.
Tennis writer Zachary Cohen posted on X, saying: “I haven’t seen him move for a single ball and he is missing literally everything.
“He had the doctors out and told them his girlfriend tested positive for Covid this morning.”
Shortly before the second set got underway, Tomic got into an argument with his girlfriend Keely Hannah who was watching on from the stands.
Fans appeared uncomfortable as they listened to the argument breaking out, with the ATP Challengers commentator telling viewers what was going on.
He said: “Bernard and his girlfriend just continuing to argue.
“The long and short of it, Bernie saying, ‘You tested positive for COVID today’, girlfriend saying, ‘No, that was two weeks ago’.
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“I did not anticipate having to commentate a couple’s quarrel here – but here we are.
“Either way, uncomfortable for all the fans here, who are just wanting to see a little bit of tennis tonight, but I don’t know that they’re going to get it.”
Tomic then chose to retire from the match, before later testing positive for COVID.
Confirming his retirement from the match, the commentator then remarked: “All right, that does it. So, retiring due to illness is Bernard Tomic.
“Well, that’s a very awkward way to end, and a rather ‘Bernie’ way to end, isn’t it? Tough way to go out.
“Tomic now, we’ll see if he’s able to recover. And again, how the heck did he win that match [against Thai-Son Kwiatkowski] a couple of days ago?”
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