He polarises like no other in the tennis circus. Now the Australian has made his next blunder. In the middle of the match, he made an unmistakable hand gesture in the direction of the audience.
Nick Kyrgios, the enfant terrible of professional tennis, has made his next gaffe. In the doubles semi-finals at the Australian Open, the 26-year-old and his partner Thanasi Kokkinakis beat the top doubles team of Granollers/Zeballos to surprisingly reach the final. So much for the sporting side of things.
During the match, however, the feisty Australian briefly forgot his good childhood. Again.
After losing a service game in the second set, he first smashed his racket and then suddenly gave some fans the middle finger while walking to the bench.
It’s not the first time the tennis bully has misbehaved at this tournament. Two days earlier, he thundered a ball into the opponent’s court so hard that it flew into the audience and hit a little boy in the face. The boy immediately started crying. Kyrgios apologised by giving the little boy his racket.
His opponents’ complaints about Kyrgios’ behaviour have also increased in recent days. Among others, Germany’s doubles specialist Tim Pütz got to feel Kyrgios’ unsportsmanlike behaviour. After the quarter-final match, Pütz said: “What he does between the first and second serve has nothing to do with entertainment, it has nothing to do with being funny, it’s just unsportsmanlike. “
“Just an absolute idiot “
Pütz’s doubles partner Michael Venus said Kyrgios had “the maturity of a 10-year-old. At the end of the day, he’s just a complete idiot”. Kyrgios could not necessarily refute this statement with his latest lapse. But that will probably not matter much to him.
The headstrong Kyrgios thinks he is on a mission. The man from Canberra, sometimes referred to as the bad boy of tennis, wants to make his compatriots happy and entertain them after the enormous Corona exertions. The arenas resemble a witch’s cauldron during his matches with Kokkinakis.
On Saturday, Kyrgios/Kokkinakis will meet their compatriots Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell in the final. It will be interesting to see whether the support of the fans will still be as enthusiastic as in the previous matches.
