Rafa wins but why jeer Tomic for being injured ?

A lot of interest surrounded the first night match on Day 2 of the Open.  Top seed Rafa Nadal was returning after missing through injury last year - it was about the only thing he did miss in a 2013 which was his best year on tour to date - and Australia's continual but increasingly less reliable hope Bernard Tomic had the task of confronting a hungry Rafa whose single taste of glory here was back in 2009.

Tomic served initially and did so extremely well, negating the skill of Nadal to push him round the court.  Of concern was Tomic appearing to pull a muscle or injure something.  Nadal showed enough on his serve to indicate difficulties throughout for Tomic to be able to break.  The injury made things harder as it did seem to hamper Tomic's movement throughout the game and he wouldn't want to be relying on five sets if this kept up.

Something was definitely wrong, and despite Tomic's best efforts and a great hold of serve under the circumstances - excellent serves and forehands - the medical time out came at the change of ends.

Despite the treatment it was clear that Bernard's movement was limited, and Rafa had no problem holding serve with the Australian unable to run anywhere to retrieve.  The remarkable thing was how long Tomic was willing to stay on court with a potentially match ending injury, and win points and games.  The serving was excellent, and Nadal could not take advantage of the injury while Tomic was doing this well.

At 4-4 Bernard asked his body for one more effort, but this time Rafa was able to enter into some rallies.  Once that occurred the break was always going to happen.

Sadly after Rafa served out the set 6-4, Tomic deferred to common sense and retired to take care of his injury and look to better times in the year ahead.  Rafa could move on in the draw with no real match practice but then no real concerns either.

The concern for any tennis lover was the treatment given Bernard Tomic by sections of the crowd that openly booed and jeered him for retiring from the match.  These people do not have a place among the spectators of any sport in our country when they behave like this.