Tomas Berdych, Twitter superstar

Author:
Courtney Nguyen
Publish date:
Jun 12, 2013

Tomas Berdych has tweeted 200 times in less than a week. (Photo from @tomasberdych)

LONDON -- Tomas Berdych defeated Thiemo de Bakker 6-1, 6-4 in the second round of the Aegon Championships on Wednesday. The match, Berdych's first on grass since back-to-back losses in the opening round of Wimbledon and the Summer Olympics last year, included a 40-minute rain delay.

"I think it's a preparation for Wimbledon with [the rain delays]," Berdych said. "Especially these tough moments, it's also good to know how to handle that, and I did it quite well. So I'm happy for it."

The normally steely Berdych broke into a wide smile when asked about joining Twitter last week. "It's pretty cool, pretty fun," he said. In just six days, Berdych has sent a whopping 200 tweets, including many responses to fans.

By comparison, Roger Federer joined Twitter almost three weeks ago and he's sent 21 tweets. Maria Sharapova signed up in January and she's fired off only 234. Jamie Hampton opened an account a few days before Berdych and she has tweeted six times, one of which was a retweet of this:

https://twitter.com/FortyDeuceTwits/status/342745033801363456

Berdych, who surpassed 10,000 followers Wednesday, has been surprised by how quickly his count has grown.

"Because when I was doing the Facebook page, there it took really long," Berdych said. He began his official Facebook page in October 2010 and now has 35,000 "likes." Berdych added: "So I try to do [Twitter] a bit differently from the beginning, and it works so it goes fast. I think that Twitter is more popular and more people are using that."

Can he keep up his off-the-charts rate of tweets?

"That's kind of [my] inexperience with the Twitter, that I start with a high level. I know it's going to be tough to keep it up, but you never know," he said with a smile. "You never know."

Here are some of Berdych's best tweets from the last week, which include a plethora of bird puns; fending off people who think he broke ex-girlfriend Lucie Safarova's heart; and, in my personal favorite, quoting Edgar Allan Poe. Follow him at @tomasberdych.

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/342627290074718208

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/342678584709742592

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/342746901751427072

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/342965331154837504

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/342679547923275777

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/342687208886632448

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/342873467827417088

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/343029134332657664

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/343421235679600642

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/343970087230926848

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/344176571675992064

https://twitter.com/tomasberdych/status/344193873783947264