Rising Australian star Bernard Tomic has made the extraordinary revelation that he 'foxed' experienced Spaniard Fernando Verdasco when trailing by two sets to love in a thrilling first round match at Melbourne Park which the teenager won in five sets.
Tomic won a whole new legion of fans with his brave performance on Rod Laver Arena, outlasting one of the fittest players on the tour to prevail 4-6 6-7 (3-7) 6-4 6-2 7-5 in a match which lasted longer than four hours.
However, he revealed after that faced with a do-or-die third set, he attempted to fool Verdasco into thinking he was fading out of the match in a bid to then surprise him and regain the momentum.
"In the third set, he thought - I had a feeling he knew I was going to go away. I eased off, I think on purpose. I eased off and seemed I didn't care, and I think that's what drew him a little bit tonight," he said.
"He thought he was going to win that third set, and when the right time came, I broke him. After that the third set, you know, he started getting a little bit tight and not hitting his shots."
The world No.39's actions were an extraordinary act of bravado from such a young player, and could have backfired spectacularly, but he enhanced his reputation for playing smart, rather than hard, tennis with his victory.
"I knew if I lifted my game early (in the third set), he would have lifted as well and he wouldn't have let go. I pretended a little bit in the first few games in that third set to not be there as mentally, but in a way to still be there," he said,
The 19-year-old used the fact he was playing in front of a fanatical Australian crowd in a big stadium on a hot day as a massive learning experience, with the outcome almost a bonus.
"You can learn a lot about yourself and how in the future you can play. I think there's a lot of guys that get two sets to love down, especially in a Grand Slam, it's the toughest thing to come back like that and they throw the towel in," he said.
"You know anything's possible if you keep trying. Same thing happened in Wimbledon when I was in the second round. I was losing two sets to love down and made the quarters."
"You can't give up."
"You know you're going to lose matches. You know you got to win. But it feels so much better when you win like this."
Tomic, who made the final eight at Wimbledon last year and last week won the AAMI Classic at Kooyong, described the win over Verdasco as the most satisfying of his career.
"This is probably the toughest five-set match that I've ever played. To be able to turn around a match from a player like that just shows me what I'm capable of in the future," he said.
"I'll be down a lot more times in this position. You have confidence being down at a young age, being able to turn it around."
"So in the future, when I'm down, I can lift myself and give it a go always."