Kyle falls to cursing Kyrgios
NICK KYRGIOS turfed Kyle Edmund out of the Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s Club among a flurry of F-words and said: “I don’t care.”
The Australian, who knocked out Andy Murray on Tuesday, has a reputation as an erratic character and lived up to it in his 7-6, 6-7, 6-3 win over the British No1.
Kyrgios cracked down 32 aces in an intriguing game but BBC commentators had to apologise several times for his language.
The Australian apologised after an early outburst and at one point was joking with the crowd.
But when he fluffed his first match point at the close of a tight contest and handed Edmund a break point, which the Yorkshireman blew, Kyrgios unleashed a volley of F-words at his coaching team. “What the f*** are you doing? I have been out here two hours,” he complained.
Kyrgios escaped a warning from the umpire after his outburst, and afterwards, the world No 21 was unrepentant.
Asked how he felt about the BBC having to apologise he said: “Fine. I don’t care.
“I got a bit tight towards the end. I haven’t played a lot of matches in the past few months.
“I was serving out a match and we had been playing for a couple of hours. I got pretty tight.”
But, he added: “I think Kyle will be a contender at Wimbledon. He played well.”
World No17 Edmund said: “It’s disappointing to lose. I’ve played him before, I know what he is like.”
Edmund fought bravely but a loose game in the deciding set cost him dearly. The 23-year-old fought back from losing the first set to level the scores in tiebreak, which he won despite at one point losing a 4-0 lead.
Novak Djokovic progressed to the quarter-finals with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Grigor Dimitrov.
British tennis’s bad boy Dan Evans, denied a wild card by Wimbledon earlier this week after just returning from a year’s ban for taking cocaine, will meet 2016 Wimbledon hero Marcus Willis in pre-qualifying today as both battle to earn their place in the main draw.
Evans beat Evan Hoyt 6-2, 6-4, while Willis overcame Patrick Foley by the same score.
Back at Queen’s, Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares beat Marcus Daniel and Wesley Koolhof 6-3, 6-7, 10-7 to advance to the semi-finals of the men’s doubles. ❑ ERNIE HUNT, famous for scoring the “donkey kick” free-kick which led to a change in the rules, has died at the age of 75.
Hunt’s volley for Coventry against Everton, the first goal to be shown in colour on Match of the Day in 1970 and first winner of the BBC’s goal of the season, came after Willie Carr flicked the ball up with his heels.
The move was later outlawed by the game’s rule-makers. have no problem facing criticism – there were reasons for it. We’ve seen how it works the other way around when we are successful, so I can live with it. “The important is to draw the conclusions. “The atmosphere in the squad is still good. Of course, there has been tension, that’s normal – we are world champions and the mood can’t be perfect after losing our first match. But we didn’t blame each other, there has been no finger-pointing. “We need to get back to our mentality of 11 warriors. That’s what made our team great.” Khedira and Ozil are both tipped to keep their places against Sweden, with either Julian Draxler or Timo Werner making way for Marco Reus instead. Long-serving striker Mario Gomez echoed Khedira’s words and wants the team to respond thing right positively to all the negative comments and believes some of the critics have their own personal agendas.
“Things have got personal very quickly and we have to put that to one side,” said Gomez. “I get the impression some people were waiting for us to fail to settle scores.
“I watched Spain being eliminated in 2014 without people saying anything. I didn’t hear about guys writing, ‘Sergio Ramos is a loser’.
“For me, it’s OK to say, ‘That guy was rubbish’, or, ‘He’s not running enough’. But to get personal is not right. The guys printing that stuff will have to live with it.
“We aim to turn this in our favour and use it to fire us up.”
Certainly, Sweden are expecting a much-improved Germany display. Defender Pontus Jansson said: “They have had a wake-up call and we must beware that.” MAURIZIO SARRI has drawn up a £140million hit list of targets to overhaul the Chelsea squad.
The Italian is set to be named the Blues’ new boss when Antonio Conte has been sacked and negotiations with Napoli are finalised.
Sarri is poised to raid his old club, with Dries Mertens and Elseid Hysaj top of his list. Juventus’s Daniele Rugani, Inter Milan’s Matias Vecino and Nice’s Jean Seri have also been targeted.