Last year, at this time, Bernard Tomic was playing an exhibition in Kooyong which he won.  He had a strong lead heading into the Australian Open.  Despite being pushed to five sets by Fernando Verdasco and being down two sets to none, Tomic won and then made it to the fourth round.  People thought Tomic would have a great 2012, but just as quickly as he surged, he mired in indifferent results, but also ran into problems off the court.

There were hopes that Tomic would use the off-season and get his game back in shape, and it appears that he’s done just that.  Last week, he played the Hopman Cup and won all his singles matches including an upset of Novak Djokovic.  It’s an exhibition, but a win can still provide confidence.

This week, he chose to play Sydney, and made it all the way to the finals beating fellow Aussie, Marinko Matosevic, Florian Mayer, defending champ, Jarkko Nieminen, and Andreas Seppi.  He played South African, Kevin Anderson, who has been having a solid tournament as well.  Anderson beat Bedene, who played well last week, Lopez, Istomin, and surprise semifinalist, Benneteau.  Anderson probably had the tougher draw to reach this point.

The finals went to Tomic in three sets with the second set tiebreak going to Anderson, but Tomic winning, 63 ,67, 63.  Sydney is Tomic’s first title on the ATP tour.  His best showing prior to this was a semifinal appearance (last year’s loss to Brisbane in the semis).

Last year, David Ferrer started off his record 7 title wins at Auckland, so he came in as defending champ.  Ferrer has become the world’s best number 5 player.  That’s a strange claim, but Ferrer hardly ever loses to players ranked below him.  He has a tough time beating players ranked above him.  Players like Soderling, Tsonga, and Berdych can bother him, but he often holds his own against such power players and uses his superior speed to his advantage.

Ferrer had a bit of a rough go in the Abu Dhabi exhibition getting drilled by Djokovic, then lost to Davydenko in the semis of Doha, but is getting back to form once again.   To win the title, he beat Yen-Hsun Lu, Lukas Lacko, Gael Monfils, and Philipp Kohlschreiber.  Monfils was given a wildcard given that his rank has slipped quite low due to injury.  Monfils knew he wasn’t quite match tough, but Ferrer made him pay for it.

Kooyong hosts the AAMI Classic, which is also an exhibition, but gives players a chance to get two matches worth of play in.  It’s a double-elimination tournament.  Given its proximity to the Australian Open (it was the old site of the tournament, much like Forest Hills was the old site prior to Flushing Meadows), players come in to play the relegation matches.  Thus, Tipsarevic, who already won Chennai and didn’t need too much extra practice only opted to play part of a match, retired, and then other players, like Fabio Fognini and Kei Nishikori came to play.  These are somewhat like practice sets that pros play unlike the exhibitions that are purely meant to entertain.

The surprise winner was Lleyton Hewitt who is returning off yet another injury.  He beat Raonic, Berdych, and del Potro to win the title.  For his success, he’ll have to take on Janko Tipsarevic in the first round of the Australian Open.  Raonic has struggled some since coming to Australia, so he has to pick up his game if he wants to go deep.  Berdych has also not had such a great warmup heading into Melbourne.

Players who won titles heading into the Australian Open were Andy Murray at Brisbane, Janko Tipsarevic at Chennai, Richard Gasquet at Doha, Bernard Tomic at Sydney, and David Ferrer at Auckland.