WIMBLEDON, England –
Nick Kyrgios insulted the Wimbledon chair umpire and asked: “Are you stupid?” He demanded to see a Grand Slam supervisor after asking why his opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas didn’t lose their always controversial and never boring match for angrily kicking a ball into the stands after losing the second set.
Unsatisfied with the response, Kyrgios asked, “What are you talking about, brother?” Then came this: “Bro, get more supervisors in. I’m not done. Get ’em all out. I don’t care. I won’t play until we clear this up.”
Narrator: He continued to play on Saturday. And the unpredictable and 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 slammed by No. 4 seed Tsitsipas for having “a very evil side”.
“It’s constant bullying. That’s what he does. He bullies opponents,” said Tsitsipas, the 2021 French Open runner-up, who also lost to Kyrgios on grass in a tournament. in Halle, Germany last month. “He was probably a bully himself at school. I don’t like bullies.”
There was more, so much more, from the underarm serves struck by the Kyrgios – including one between his legs – to the three shots deliberately landed directly on him by Tsitsipas. A total of three code violations were called by chair umpire Damien Dumusois, one on Kyrgios for audible obscenity and two on Tsitsipas for ball abuse, earning him a penalty point.
Informed of Tsitsipas’ “bullying” comment, Kyrgios laughed and shook his head.
“He’s the one who hit me. He’s 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 towards Stefanos today, I don’t think so,” Kyrgios said during his press conference, wearing a T-shirt with former NBA player Dennis Rodman’s name on it.
“If he’s affected by it today, that’s what’s holding him back,” Kyrgios said of Tsitsipas. “Because someone can just do that, and it’s going to make them lose their game like that? I just think that’s sweet.”
There’s even been some terrific tennis along the way, with players combining for 118 winners. The whole thing lasted three hours and 17 minutes, with barely a dull moment, and ended so late that the retractable roof of Court No. 1 was closed and the artificial lights came on in the middle of 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 serving and stealing on a second serve.
Kyrgios, a 27-year-old Australian, converted his second match point with a bunt, then roared. That kind of talent has always been evident in Kyrgios, who was a two-time Grand Slam quarter-finalist. As obvious for a long time: Kyrgios often seems more interested in entertaining or arguing than doing whatever it takes to finish on the bright side.
During a substitution midway through the fourth set on Saturday, Kyrgios sat in his chair, barking between bites on a banana. Was he yelling at an official? To the people sitting in his dressing room? To himself ? Hard to tell with him sometimes.
He was fined US$10,000 by the tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct during his first-round match, which he ended by spitting the direction of a spectator who he believed was heckling him. This is the largest of 22 price penalties issued in Week 1.
Kyrgios is used to crossing the line during games. In 2019, he was placed on six-month probation by the ATP Tour after being fined $113,000 for eight tournament infractions. Earlier this season, he was dropped from a match at the Italian Open after throwing a chair. In 2016, he was suspended by the ATP for not attempting to win and for insulting fans during the Shanghai Masters.
His troubles with Dumusois began in the first set, when he was bothered by a reverse call by a linesman and wanted that official out. Didn’t happen.
“There comes a time when you’re really fed up, let’s say,” said Tsitsipas, a 23-year-old Greek. “The constant conversation, the constant complaint.”
After Kyrgios broke to grab the second set, Tsitsipas kicked a backhand ball into the crowd. The bullet appeared to ricochet off a wall, but what wasn’t entirely clear was whether it had landed on someone.
Tsitsipas later apologized for this, saying it stemmed from the frustration created by “the whole circus show going on, on the other side of the net”.
“I didn’t hit anyone. He hit the wall, thank God,” he said, and admitted he was trying to hit his enemy with more bullets aimed straight at his body. “For sure I will never do that again. It’s my responsibility, that’s for sure.”
It drew just 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 stunned,” Kyrgios said, referring to the 2020 US Open episode involving Novak Djokovic, who was ejected from a match after hitting inadvertently hit a linesman in the throat.
At one point, Kyrgios said to Dumusois, “You don’t know how to play, so why don’t you tell me how to play?… Bro, people want to see me, not you.”
They’ll get another chance to see Kyrgios on Monday, when he takes on Brandon Nakashima for a quarter-final spot. Nakashima is one of four American men in the fourth round, the most at Wimbledon since 1999.
Monday’s other men’s matches will pit 22-time major champion Rafael Nadal against No. 21 Botic van de Zandschulp, No. 11 Taylor Fritz against qualifier Jason Kubler and No. 19 Alex de Minaur against Cristian Garin.
Nadal’s 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 victory over No. 27 Lorenzo Sonego was nowhere near as confusing as Kyrgios against Tsitsipas, but it had its own back-and-forth between tag players .
Nadal didn’t like that Sonego’s growls were too loud and too long. Sonego didn’t like Nadal signaling him to talk about it on the net.
Unlike Kyrgios and Tsitsipas, however, they settled their differences in the dressing room afterwards.
“I have to say,” Nadal said at his press conference, “I was wrong.”