Time for parting of the ways for father and son For almost a decade, sometimes off but mostly on, Neil Guiney shared a tennis court with Bernard Tomic and thus, necessarily, his ubiquitous father, John. Now 81, the veteran coach saw anger, arguments, volatility, shouting, dysfunction. He saw what, for a long time, he has considered to be a fractured, unhealthy relationship. Did he ever see physical abuse? "Well, I don't want to go there, but nothing like we've just seen [reported] in the paper," said Guiney, who describes as "terribly disappointing" the incident that led to Tomic snr facing court in Madrid on Monday charged with assaulting his son's hitting partner, Thomas Drouet. The Frenchman has also claimed in a disturbing interview with L'Equipe that he saw John Tomic - whom he variously describes as "violent," "dangerous," "crazy" and a "perverted manipulator" - punch Bernard in the head during a recent practice session in Monte Carlo, and hit his son while Drouet was staying in the next room at the family's Gold Coast home in January. Neil Guiney: "Bernard has always been victimised by his father." Calling for John Tomic to be banned from the sport, Drouet said Bernard had visited him in hospital in Madrid and said: "I'm so sorry. He went too far, it's over. I don't want him at tournaments any more. Guiney has not witnessed anything so serious; enough, though, to be concerned. Most of the time John would just do it verbally and scream and yell, and so whatever he wanted, that'd happen. He's a dominating character and he's got a threatening sort of attitude, and he's a great big guy, and so most people would go into retreat. Regardless of what Tomic says in a Spanish trial on May 14 (he has testified that the headbutt that broke Drouet's nose was in self-defence), and what the wounded Frenchman alleges (he claimed he was abused, spat on and ultimately attacked by John Tomic, leaving him bleeding and unconscious with a broken nose and vertebrae), it is hard to imagine the Croatian-born Queenslander will be seen in tennis again. Indeed, Guiney hopes this will be the catalyst for a professional parting-of-the-ways he considers long overdue. The man described by John Tomic only last year as the best coach in the world, whose relationship with the Tomics began when seven-year-old Bernard was brought to a group lesson, remains in occasional telephone contact with the world No. 49 and wishes him well. But he is saddened by Tomic's struggles since January, and suspects fraught family relationships - as well as some obvious flaws in the Tomic game - are partly to blame. "It's been a pretty rocky road all the way along, and it's getting rockier, so it could be now Bernard will make the big break with John, which I think would be good, but heaven knows what will happen," Guiney said. It's a father-and-son situation, and Bernard's more used to him than we are, but how he puts up with it, I don't know. Often in a situation like this there's a sort of a fear factor and whether Bernard's got the courage to make the break or not, I don't know. I just hope he's strong enough to get out on his own and he'll mature faster, I think, too. If it was me I'd have been gone years ago, let me put it that way. Guiney did go, several times, frustrated by John Tomic's meddling, before eventually agreeing to return to help his young protege. "I see that in lots of ways John's done a good job - he's got him on the court, and they've hit millions of balls, which is all very helpful, but John's a guy that has no tennis background, and what happens is that in the end these sort of people get out of their depth, and the more they get out of their depth, the more frustrated they get, and so they're more inclined to get overly emotional and start screaming and yelling and what have you," Guiney said. John can be happy one minute, but then he starts raging around and he becomes disruptive and argumentative and very bossy, and it sort of destroys the whole atmosphere. I see it as a big question mark for Bernard if things stay as they are. Drouet's account of his time with the Tomics is chilling. "Bernard has always been victimised by his father," Drouet told L'Equipe. I've heard Bernard tell John dozens of times he didn't want him on court any more. It's difficult for him, because he doesn't know how to function any other way. He's a hostage, and he's developed a Stockholm syndrome.