WHAT was that, Bernard?

The 23-year-old tennis star had a veiled swipe at Stan Wawrinka in a pre-match interview with Seven News.

The Davis Cup representative said he was “surprised” at Wawrinka winning a grand slam. The Swiss beat Novak Djokovic on Monday in the US Open final at Flushing Meadows, marking his third slam crown.

“It just surprises me because I’ve beaten him a few times (and) Nick’s beaten him a few times,” Tomic said.

“I’ve beaten a few grand slam champions in my life.”

Bernard Tomic is up next, we spoke to him this week on the recent #USOpen and playing Davis Cup with @NickKyrgios https://t.co/MmrFb8Xrr2 — 7Tennis (@7tennis) September 16, 2016

Unfortunately for Tomic, his self-proclaimed track record against the greats doesn’t stand up too well.

His only recorded win against Wawrinka came in 2011 in their clash at the Davis Cup play-offs.

He has also lost all six clashes with world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, all three meetings with Rafael Nadal and all four appearances against Andy Murray and Roger Federer.

To give Tomic some credit, he beat previous US Open winner Marin Cilic in straight sets last year and even stole a set from the great Federer as a plucky 18-year-old in 2011.

Australia are in fine shape at the Davis Cup after Tomic took home a win in his clash against Slovakia’s Jozef Kovalik in straight sets mere hours after 21-year-old Nick Kyrgios crushed world No. 127 Andrej Martin 6-3 6-2 6-4 in Friday’s opening singles rubber.

The twin wins give Sam Groth and John Peers the chance to wrap up the best-of- five-match tie with a victory over Martin and Igor Zelenay in Saturday’s doubles.

Making his first Davis Cup appearance since a forgettable performance in last year’s quarter-final win over Kazakhstan in Darwin, Kyrgios was more inconvenienced by a nose bleed than his lowly-ranked opponent.

The world No. 15 spent much of the final set with a tissue up his left nostril and admitted to relief at overcoming the irritation to collect his first Davis Cup point for Australia in two years.

“It was a bit of a hassle,” Kyrgios said.

“Everyone expects me to go out there and towel the guy but it’s never as easy as that.

“I thought he played some great tennis today. He actually adapted really well to the grass. He was slicing and was very comfortable on it and that third set definitely wasn’t easy.”

After suffering a shock loss to world No. 115 Aleksandr Nedovyesov in Darwin, then-Australian captain Wally Masur replaced the temperamental youngster with Sam Groth for the must-win reverse singles.

Kyrgios was then overlooked for Australia’s semi-final loss to Great Britain last year following his infamous sledging of Stan Wawrinka, before missing the first-round defeat to the US at Kooyong in March with a virus.

But the 21-year-old made a welcome — and incident-free — return to national service on Friday to give Australia the early ascendancy in their bid to retain their place in the 16-team World Group for 2017.

Kyrgios bounced back from the disappointment of dropping serve to love in the seventh game of the match to break Martin for a second time and pocket the opening set in just 25 minutes.

He broke the Slovak’s serve for a third straight game to seize the early advantage in the second set and secured a two-set lead with his fifth ace. The Australian No.1 dropped serve immediately after requiring treatment for his nose bleed to fall behind 3-1 in the third set.

But he quickly regained control to reel off four straight games to take the match after one hour, 40 minutes.

After a tight opening set, Tomic coasted to relatively routine victory over Kovalik to improve his tidy Cup record to 17-4.

— with AAP