Australian tennis ace busted on beach for playing loud music

Australian tennis bad boy Bernard Tomic — in Miami after being suspended from his country’s Davis Cup team for criticizing governing officials — was arrested at a swanky South Beach hotel Wednesday night for refusing to turn down loud music and disobeying police.

According to the arrest affidavit, hotel security guards knocked on Tomic’s penthouse suite door three times after receiving complaints from neighbors about loud music. The high-end W South Beach hotel on 22nd Street and Collins Avenue boasts of its 9-foot ceilings, glass balconies, 37-inch flat screen televisions, and crocodile-skin headboards.

Witnesses said Tomic closed the door on the guards on all three occasions that they knocked, and refused to lower the music.

When “the defendant pointed his finger aggressively towards the hotel security officers and continued to play loud music,” the guards called police, the report says. When Miami Beach police arrived, the report says, Tomic was told if he didn’t pack his bags and leave, he would be arrested.

Tomic stayed. Police arrested him and charged him with resisting arrest without violence and trespassing.

The Associated Press reported that following a third-round loss to eventual Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic two weeks ago, Tomic was suspended from Australia’s home Davis Cup quarterfinal against Kazakhstan after he criticized his country’s tennis officials.

The 25th ranked tennis player in the world was alleged to have said that the governing body abandoned him after he underwent hip surgery a year ago. Tennis Australia President Steve Healy called Tomic’s behavior and statements, “unacceptable.”

Tomic, not particularly well-known outside his country, also made headlines in 2013 when his father was barred from tennis tournaments after being charged for allegedly head-butting his son’s playing partner Thomas Drouet prior to the Madrid Open.

The Associated Press reported the incident stemmed from an earlier fight between John Tomic and Drouet at the Nice airport in which John Tomic yelled at Drouet for not getting him milk, then threatened to punch him in the head.

This story was originally published July 16, 2015 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Australian tennis ace busted on beach for playing loud music."