Rising Bernard Tomic needs more big-name scalps to crack the world top 10

Australian Bernard Tomic has been steadily rising up the world tennis rankings but needs far more wins against top-ranked players if he's to crack the world top 10. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

In a sandy valley, surrounded by a vast mountain range in March last year, Bernard Tomic ^[1] wrapped up a shock win over the world No8, David Ferrer, on the blue-green hard-courts of the Indian Wells Masters tournament. Statistically it was a remarkable event – it was just Tomic's second career victory over a top 10 player in an official ATP match, and his first in nearly two years.

For all his undeniable talent and the promise that he showed during a run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals at the tender age of just 18, until that moment in the desert oasis, for seven years on the ATP tour Tomic had struggled against the game's elite players.

Yet after string of encouraging recent results, he heads into this year's Australian Open harbouring hopes of becoming a top 10 player himself. Roger Federer may not share his confidence ^[2], but since that win over Ferrer, Tomic has begun to turn the tide of defeats.

As 2015 progressed, it began to improve. First came a victory over Marin Cilic on the fast hard courts in Toronto, and later in the year there were wins against Richard Gasquet and again Ferrer, this time in Shanghai ^[3].

Continuing the trend, last week at the Brisbane International Tomic produced his first win in an official ATP match against a top 10 player on Australian soil; 6-3,1-6, 6-3 against Kei Nishikori. Tomic, now ranked 17 in the world, is seeded 16^th at the Australian Open ^[5] and he arrives at Melbourne Park with a record of seven wins and 32 losses against the current top 10.

Yet he is still winless in 14 matches against the big four, and of the current top 15, he holds a positive win-loss ratio against just one of them: Kevin Anderson. He is 0-5 against Novak Djokovic (1-5 if you count the Hopman Cup win in 2013, which the ATP doesn't), 0-4 against Tomas Berdych and 0-3 against Rafael Nadal, Federer and Andy Murray, the last of whom he could face in the fourth round of this Australian Open. He is 1-1 against Stan Wawrinka, though his win against the Swiss player came on grass, in Australia, in 2011 when Wawrinka was ranked outside the top 15.

The fact remains: if he is to reach his goal of mingling with the best in the world at the top of the rankings, he must start scoring wins against the big names at the big tournaments. But with his form rapidly trending upward – with four wins and eight losses against the top 10 since and including that against Ferrer in March – the signs are promising.

There is no disputing that 2015 was a very good year for him. Tomic finished 2013 at 51 in the rankings, 2014 at 78 and 2015 at a career high of 18. His win-loss record for 2015 was 40-27, and 26-12 on hard courts. Those latter figures on what is clearly his favourite surface represent the kind of form that would put him into the top 10. It was also almost certainly no coincidence it all happened after Tony Roche joined his team as a part-time consultant and mentor ^[6].

More specifically, Tomic needs to break into the semi-finals of a few Masters 1000 events and/or make at least one Grand Slam quarter-final to make up the big points gap required to jump inside the top 10. This is why, bar a freakishly kind draw at one of these tournaments, he must start to score some wins against the game's elite.

When examining his prospects of actually achieving this, it is revealing to note the other players from outside the top 10 who have the best records against the best players; Andersen (who beat Murray and Wawrinka last year); 25-year-old Milos Raonic, now back at number 14 in the world, beat Nadal, Nishikori, Murray, Berdych in 2015 and Federer just last week; Grigor Dimitrov, just a year older than Tomic, who despite having a surprisingly poor year in 2015, managed wins against Wawrinka, Berdych, Murray, and Djokovic; then an outlier in Ivo Karlovic, the 36-year-old, 208cm Croat, who beat Tsonga, Berdych and Djokovic.

And yes, you did see a pattern there – it's the players with the powerful, explosive, weapons-grade games who score the big wins over the big players. The rallying, counter-punchers rarely, if ever, do. This raises questions about whether it's movement, attitude or quite simply power that Tomic needs to work on in order to take his place among the best.

Joining Federer ^[7] ("many seasons in a row now we have seen or heard that top 10 is the goal and he's missed out on it by a long shot") as a sceptic on Tomic's top 10 prospects was his former coach Neil Guiney, who told News Corp, "Bernard's light-years away from say, Djokovic," before adding, "He's a bit late at maturing … he's at an age where he should be knocking on the door of the top 10." Former pro Goran Ivanisevic has also added ^[8]: "I always said that Bernard is a guy who should be top 10 a long time ago… He is such a talented player".

It's hard to believe but Tomic is still just 23 years old and doesn't turn 24 until October, making him the youngest player currently ranked inside the top 17. Also, his unorthodox game was probably always going to take a little longer to find its feet. But of the current top 10 all but two had already reached those heights by the time they were 23. Some hope: fellow tour young guns Raonic and Dimitrov reached the top 10 for the first time at age 23 while American John Isner, currently ranked 11, didn't break through until he was 27 years old.

Tomic is not alone in this struggle. Top 30 player Jack Sock is also 23 and has a similarly poor record to Tomic against the best, though interestingly he leads Tomic 3-0 in head-to-head. 22-year-old Dominic Thiem (ranked 20) has never registered a single win against a top 10 player, nor has 22 year old world No42 Jiri Vesely. All while 19-year-old Borna Coric, like 20-year-old Nick Kyrgios, has already scored a couple of wins over the Big Four.

Tomic has placed a lot of emphasis on earning his 16^th seed at the Australian Open,^[9] though being seeded 16 rather 17 or 18 doesn't necessarily help him all that much, bar missing a third round match with a player seeded between 9 and 16, perhaps Tsonga, Raonic or Isner. Instead he will now be drawn to face a player ranked between 17 and 24 in the third round, with potential match-ups against Gael Monfils (now that would be a cracking first week match), Viktor Troicki or Karlovic.

Should Tomic progress past the third round he will face Murry in the fourth round so confronts the possibility of an early end to his campaign like against Berdych in 2015, Nadal in 2014 and 2011, and Federer in 2013 and 2012. He did not win a set in any of those encounters.

All that said, the statistical prospects of Tomic progressing past the fourth round of this Australian Open remain relatively slim and so the likelihood he'll break into the top 10 within the next few months is too. The recent upswing in his results is promising but in order for his top 10 dream to become a reality, it's going to take a big scalp or two.