Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

Aussie young gun Bernard Tomic is determined to show his past scrapes with the law and feud with Tennis Australia over funding are all a part of the past. The 23-year-old ranked 18th and hoping to climb in the ATP ranks, insists that he’s now totally devoted to his sport and is the victim of some mistaken public perceptions based on his wild and crazy teenaged years.

Despite skipping last month’s Newcombe awards after not being nominated along with fellow wild child Nick Kyrgios, Tomic is willing to let the snub slip while trying to methodically repair his image.

“It’s tough to judge if Nick can always be good, or me — there’s always going to be some stuff where we are always in the spotlight,” Tomic told Australia’s Sunday Mail. “With our personalities, it can be tricky. As long as we learn to handle it the right way, that’s the most important thing for us. I’ve started learning over the years.”

Tomic, who won a tournament in South America last July a week after being released from an overnight in a Miami jail for loud hotel partying which he says was a total misunderstanding, added that he’s trying to become a reformed character.

“When people meet me they think (differently) of me, that I’m a nice guy and my character doesn’t fit the character they hear about negatively on TV and in the headlines. They really have to know the person in real life. The Australian public will soon learn to do that.”

Tomic’s teenaged years also featured several traffic-stop incidents with police in his native state of Queensland.

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.