Australian tennis player Bernard Tomic has broken his silence on the terrifying footage shared on social media that showed he being assaulted on the Gold Coast, Australia.

The 16-second clip shows two men standing over the body of Tomic and attempting to kick and stomp him.

Channel 10 reported the video was filmed outside of a tattoo parlour on the Gold Coast while the details of when the attack happened remain unclear.

Until now.

The former World No. 17 took to Instagram on Saturday night, revealing the incident happened “years ago”.

“Hello everyone – hope everyone is doing well,” Tomic said.

“I’m here in Istanbul, Turkey, flying to USA and I haven’t been on Instagram for a couple of months and I thought I would jump on and talk about this video that has been circulating.

“Heh — it’s so funny — because that happened five or six years ago. So I have no idea why this is all going on now. I hope everyone is doing well – and, yah, peace.”

Tomic is currently No. 292 ranked ATP player and he’s been battling his way on the Challenger circuit.

He was in Istanbul for a tournament, where he was knocked out in the second round by the Dominican Republic’s Nick Hardt in a tight three-setter 6-2 3-6 7-6.

The video had made waves in Australia as the shocking footage circulated.

Along with the men trying to kick and stomp Tomic, he was filmed desperately trying to cover his face throughout the length of the clip before one man attempts to pick him up off the ground and back to his feet.

One man continually shouts at Tomic “get up ya dog” throughout the video.

But Tomic is trying to rebuild his career, having come back from 825 in the world, building his ranking over the past 18 months back to his current mark.

Despite his rise, it wasn’t enough to earn him a qualifying wildcard for the Australian Open Grand Slam earlier in the year.

Tomic has fallen out of favour with Tennis Australia after he blasted Aussie tennis icon Lleyton Hewitt back in 2019.

“No one likes him any more,” Tomic said after a first-round Open exit that year.

“We have a lot of issues that not a lot of players are happy about. We all know who those players are. Myself, (Thanasi) Kokkinakis, (Nick) Kyrgios.”

Last season he said he’d “win Wimbledon” before the end of his career despite having lost in straight sets in qualifying to then-World No. 146 Roman Safiullin.

Days later he revealed he had contracted Covid.

Along with his outburst in the direction of Hewitt, Tomic has a long-running feud with fellow Aussie Nick Kyrgios.

The two have traded verbal barbs over the years with their feud exploding all over again at the end of 2022.

The last shot in their heated war of words came from Kyrgios who clipped Tomic with a stinging spray.