Bernard Tomic’s faltering career has been hit by another setback after he failed to qualify for next week’s prestigious Queen’s Club tournament.
Tomic, who was ranked 17th in the world three years ago, slumped to a 6-4 7-6 (7-3) defeat to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, a 20-year-old clay court specialist with just once previous win on grass to his name, on Saturday.
Currently ranked at 88th in the world rankings, the Australian will now drop out of the top 100 on Monday.
He is also in danger of missing out on automatically qualifying for Wimbledon next month, for the second successive year, after going down to the world No.130 from Spain.
There was also disappointment for exciting 19-year-old Alexei Popyrin who lost a hard-fought three-set clash to the gritty Roberto Carballes Baena, the world No.73 from Spain.
Popyrin went down 6-2 5-7 6-4 in a match that lasted almost two hours.
The draw for the event at the exclusive west London club which starts on Monday, saw Nick Kyrgios pitted against left-hander Adrian Mannarino.
Australian No.1 Alex de Minaur will face a yet-to-be-decided qualifier.