Snarling Kyrgios survives a thriller
IF Nick Kyrgios’s cussing, scowling self- pity is precisely what tennis needs — as we keep being told — then we might as well call time on 139 years of Wimbledon.
Beyond admiration for his talented right arm, nobody who even vaguely cares for such pettifogging virtues such as manners and restraint could be impressed by what they witnessed between the showers on Court No 2 yesterday. A trendy haircut and petulance do not a sporting hero make.
Kyrgios’s litany of crimes is long. One indictment is for ‘tanking’ — not playing to win. He did it here last year against Richard Gasquet and he appeared to be at it again yesterday in the fourth set of his electric- quick match against the dreadlocked German Dustin Johnson, himself no exemplar of best behaviour.
‘No effort, stupid, tanking,’ declared John Lloyd, the former British No 1, as he watched the capitulation, aghast. Kyrgios then picked himself up to win a tough, even and often dazzling contest 6-7, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
What is up with these young Aussies? His fellow irritant Bernard Tomic also has form for tanking, holding his racket the wrong way round when facing match point against Fabio Fognini in the Madrid Masters in May, earning him the splendid nickname ‘ Tomic the Tank Engine’.
But back to yesterday. Before apparently tanking, Kyrgios had worked his short temper into a full bout of truculence after the umpire called a double bounce (probably erroneously) against him early in the third set. ‘Are you kidding me?’ he asked sulkily of Jake Garner, the American in the chair. He returned to his complaint at the end of the game. ‘That’s just horrendous by you guys once again.’
He could have been a 13-year- old rather than 21. He muttered on and on, his Anthem for Doomed Youth. No wonder a lady in the crowd accused him of acting like a baby. He met her intervention with a cold stare. Don’t you dare challenge me!
He then let out an expletive that won him a code violation — his second in successive matches, having shouted the epigram ‘bull****’ in his first. Yesterday he also moaned about a line judge smiling. He really did. ‘He must have a great sense of humour,’ moaned the man who clearly doesn’t.
‘I thought my behaviour was really good throughout the match,’ he pleaded afterwards. ‘Obviously I went a bit off track towards the third. The crowd was loving it. I’m sure a lot of people around the world were watching that match. That’s what sport is. It’s entertainment, isn’t it?
‘I don’t know why you guys always ask these questions. There are plenty of players who ask the umpire questions. I’m not necessarily arguing with the umpire. I just want to hear what he thinks. I want to tell him my opinion.’ Before facing the media, Kyrgios predictably tweeted his support for Viktor Troicki, the Serbian who had a tirade at the ‘worst umpire in the world ever’.
‘I feel you,’ he said, which is not great English but his meaning was clear. He was associating himself with loud-mouthed assaults on authority, believing authority must always be wrong.
While we are on the subject of bad language, it is worth recalling the headline in the Australian newspaper, ‘Nick Kyrgios: Breath of fresh air or a total ****head?’ Somehow, the author concluded: ‘Kyrgios is Gael Monfils-sized circus. But he is a Monfils with ticker. He’s a Bernard Tomic with wheels. He’s a one-in-a-million.’
That is the kind of laudatory nonsense, the kind of indulgence, which does nothing to temper his selfishness.
If you think I am being harsh, let’s not forget that in Montreal last year he stooped so low as to tell his opponent Stan Wawrinka: ‘ Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend’, a distasteful reference to his friend and fellow Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis.
The match itself was played in three parts because of the showers: just a handful of points in the morning, the majority of the action in mid-afternoon, and then back for the final skirmish at 3-3 in the fifth, with Johnson facing a break point. Kyrgios won that point. All over bar the shouting. The whole match lasted two hours and four minutes. And, credit where it is due, their lickety- split play, with no unnecessary bouncing or towelling, was balm. ‘It really came down to a couple of points,’ said Kyrgios. ‘ Both of us got lucky at times. Both of us sort of played well at times. It really came down to a couple of points.’ Dawn Fraser, the great Australian swimmer, is less impressed than the Australian hacks by Kyrgios the scamp, even suggesting, injudiciously, that if he didn’t know how to behave he might return to where his parents come from.
In fact, his Greek father is a computer engineer, his mother a Malaysian princess. He does not have a long list of excuses either. He had not had to fight his way out of poverty or, seemingly, from a broken home. He might be expected to know something about common decency.
His conduct might just be more bearable if he could play tennis like Rod Laver. But he has made it no further than the quarter-finals of two Grand Slams and is ranked 18th in the world. Lavishly talented, yes, but not worthy of the get-out that genius lives by its own rules.