Bernard Tomic has had a dig at Nick Krygios ahead of their much-hyped first showdown, saying the fellow Australian tennis bad boy needed the match more than he did.

The pair will meet for the first time when they square off in the Kooyong Classic exhibition tournament in Melbourne on Wednesday.

While both have declared there’s no animosity between them, Tomic added some spice ahead of the match saying Kyrgios is “mentally struggling”.

“We’re good friends and it’s good for us to play – he’s needing it more than anything because he’s a little bit mentally struggling right now,” the 26-year-old said after his opening Kooyong win over American Jack Sock.

World No. 85 Tomic said he hoped the hard-hitting Kyrgios, ranked 51, would take the match seriously as they fine-tuned their Melbourne Park preparations.

“For practice it’s unbelievable and I’ve got some stuff I’ve got to work on and tomorrow’s my last chance I can do that,” Tomic said.

“Am I doing that against Nick, who only just serves, it’s tough to do, so hopefully he takes it seriously.”

Tomic looked in good touch in his win over Sock, who this time last year was ranked world No.8 but is now outside the top 100.

He wrapped up the low-key encounter 5-7 6-4 10-6, with the winner decided by the new fifth-set tie-break format the Open has adopted.

It was his first competitive hit-out since September, when he won the Chengdu Open in China.

But Tomic had no such lofty aspirations for the first major of the year.

“Probably another third or fourth round like I’ve done a hundred times,” said Tomic when asked of his expectations.

“Sometimes it’s good to not be seeded and sometimes it’s bad so we’ll see in two days.”

Tomic said he’d only started training a few weeks ago, but felt good in his return to court.

“I think we played pretty well today, we didn’t play that aggressive but I was pretty happy,” the Queenslander said.

“I don’t run a lot anyway but the last thing you want is to run for a ball and then you can’t do anything five or six days later.”