WIMBLEDON, England –
Nick Kyrgios berated the chair umpire at Wimbledon and asked: “Are you stupid?” He demanded to see a Grand Slam supervisor after asking why his opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas didn’t lose their ever-contested and never boring match over an angry ball-striking in the stands after losing the second set.
Not satisfied with the answer, Kyrgios asked: “What are you talking about bro?” Then came this: “Brother, bring out more supervisors. I’m not done. Get them all out. I do not care. I’m not going to play until we get to the bottom of this.”
Narrator: He did continue to play on Saturday. And the unpredictable, unseeded Kyrgios won 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7) to reach the fourth round at the All England Club for the first time since 2016 — then was criticized by No. 4 seed Tsitsipas for having a “very evil side”.
“It’s constant harassment. That’s what he does. He bullies opponents,” said Tsitsipas, the 2021 French Open runner-up who also lost to Kyrgios on grass at a tournament in Halle, Germany, last month. “He was probably a school bully himself. I don’t like bullies.”
There was more, much more, from underarm serves from Kyrgios – including one between his legs – to the three shots deliberately hit right at him by Tsitsipas. A total of three code violations were awarded by chair umpire Damien Dumusois, one to Kyrgios for an audible profanity and two to Tsitsipas for ball abuse, which earned a point penalty.
Told of Tsitsipas’ “bashing” comment, Kyrios laughed and shook his head.
“He was the one hitting me with balls. He was the one who hit a spectator… I didn’t do anything. Other than going back and forth with the referee, I didn’t do anything disrespectful to Stefanos today, I don’t think,” Kyrgios said at his press conference, wearing a T-shirt with former NBA player Dennis Rodman’s name on it.
“If today he is affected by it, then it holds him back,” Kyrgios said of Tsitsipas. “Because someone can just do that and it’s going to throw them off their game like that? I just think it’s soft.”
There was even some great tennis along the way, with the players combining for 118 winners. The whole thing took three hours, 17 minutes, without a single dull moment, and ended so late that the retractable roof on Court No. 1 was closed and the artificial lights turned on midway through the fourth set.
Tsitsipas held a pair of set points to force a fifth, but Kyrgios saved both, the latter with a half-volley winner after serve and a second-serve volley.
Kyrgios, a 27-year-old from Australia, converted his second match point with a drop shot, then roared. That kind of skill has always been evident from Kyrgios, who was a two-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist. Also long obvious: Kyrgios often seems more interested in entertaining or arguing than doing whatever it takes to finish on the right side of the score.
On Saturday, during a change midway through the fourth set, Kyrgios sat in his chair, barking between bites of banana. Did he yell at an official? To the people sitting in his guest box? In yourself? Sometimes it’s hard to get along with him.
He was fined US$10,000 by the tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct in his first-round match, which he ended by spitting in the direction of a spectator who he said was taunting him. This is the largest of the 22 cash prizes awarded in Week 1.
Kyrgios has a history of crossing the line during matches. In 2019, he was placed on six-month probation by the ATP Tour after being fined $113,000 for eight infractions per tournament. Earlier this season, he was ejected from a match at the Italian Open after throwing a chair. In 2016, he was suspended from the ATP for not trying to win and for insulting fans during the Shanghai Masters.
His problems with Dumusois began in the first set when he was disturbed by a reversed call by a line judge and demanded that the official be removed. It didn’t happen.
“There comes a point where you really get tired of it, let’s say,” said Tsitsipas, a 23-year-old from Greece. “The constant talking, the constant complaining.”
After Kyrgios broke to take the second set, Tsitsipas hit a backhand into the crowd. The ball seemed to ricochet off a wall, but what wasn’t quite clear was whether it landed on anyone.
Tsitsipas apologized for it afterwards, saying it stemmed from frustration created by “the whole circus show that’s happening on the other side of the network”.
“I didn’t hit people. Hit the wall, thank God,” he said, admitting that he tried to hit his opponent with other balls aimed straight at his body. “I will certainly never do it again. It’s my responsibility, for sure.”
This only prompted a warning from Dumusois, which didn’t sit well with Kyrgios.
“You can’t hit a ball into the crowd and hit someone without being timed out,” Kyrgios said, referring to the episode at the 2020 US Open involving Novak Djokovic being ejected from a match after he inadvertently hit a ball that hit a line umpire in the throat.
At one point, Kyrgios said to Dumusois, “You don’t know how to play, so how about you don’t tell me how to play? … Brother, people want to see me, not you.”
They will get another chance to see Kyrgios on Monday when he faces Brandon Nakashima for a place in the quarter-finals. Nakashima is one of four Americans in the fourth round, the most at Wimbledon since 1999.
The other men’s matches on Monday will be 22-time major champion Rafael Nadal vs. No. 21 Botik van de Zandshulp, No. 11 Taylor Fritz vs. qualifier Jason Kubler and No. 19 Alex de Minaur vs. Christian Garin.
Nadal’s 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 victory over No. 27 Lorenzo Sonego was nowhere near as off the rails as Kyrgios’s against Tsitsipas, but it had its own share of back-and-forth between the players over tag.
Nadal did not like that Sonego’s grunt was too loud and prolonged. Sonego didn’t like that Nadal asked him to talk about it online.
Unlike Kyrgios and Tsitsipas, however, they ironed out their differences in the dressing room afterwards.
“I have to say,” Nadal said at his press conference, “that I was wrong.
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