This calmer Kyrgios could go all the way
Aussie proves he’s a contender as he’s fined for earlier bad behaviour
Good game the other day’ Nick Kyrgios observed to a line judge as he prepared for the match which saw him breeze into Wimbledon’s third round.
This was no casual courtside encounter. The grey-haired official of more mature years was one of those subjected to some of the worst of the Australian’s ire during the three hours of personalised abuse he dished out while overcoming Britain’s Paul Jubb on Tuesday.
The individual in question looked slightly unsettled by this face-toface encounter, though spectators laughed along heartily with Kyrgios, who was last night fined $10,000 for his antics.
Judging by the evidence of the tetchy press conference the 27-year- old gave last night, he is nursing a profound sense of victimhood about the fact his behaviour during the Jubb match earned him a negative press.
That the line judge was there seemed to demonstrate that the All England Club will not be cowed by Kyrgios’s criticism of their officials. They are not in the business of appointing him new ones.
The performance which ensued from Kyrgios provided a graphic sense that he can progress far here and provide a magnificent lift for these Championships, if he can only find the temperament.
It was a performance of devastating serving power, in which Serb Filip Krajinovic took 37 minutes to win a single point from the Australian’s delivery. The first two sets were wrapped up in 58 minutes, at which stage Kyrgios had sent down 17 aces.
There was a blend of touch and power which cohered and calmed the Australian’s interior mind. The liquid drop shot he possesses was deployed in abundance. His power on the forehand side eviscerated Krajinovic. This is precisely why Kyrgios has twice defeated Novak djokovic and is a former Queen’s finalist.
Everyone is his friend when things are swinging along. He nodded in agreement and declared ‘yes’ when Krajinovic challenged a line call, observing ‘good shot’ when it was resolved in his opponent’s favour.
Fleetingly, in the course of the brutal 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 dismantling, there were signs of Kyrgios’s thin skin. ‘do you want to cough before I serve?’ he asked one spectator, who had done so just before he missed a first serve.
‘Now is when you cough,’ he continued, after winning that point. It really does not take very much to cause him offence.
Some of the line calls will have done nothing to quell his insistence that judges, like ‘the old man’ who so infuriated him in round one, should not be here. one which he challenged — a service pronounced out at the start of the second set — was corrected.
He directed a hard stare in the direction of a spectator who popped a cork as he prepared to receive serve in the third. Even such a crass and mindless intrusion could not deter him though.
But the press conference showed how fragile his self-control actually is. His conduct against Jubb, which concluded with him spitting towards fans, prompted criticism both here and in Australia but he was clearly itching to discuss ‘the media’s disrespect’.
He declared that this was ‘just a reminder to put you all back in your place’.
The conversation soon lapsed into the same tone as after the Jubb match. ‘I love it because you can’t write anything. What are you going to say? Nothing today. I’ve dumb-founded all of you.’ He refused to discuss the pre-match exchange with the line judge, or a conversation he appeared to have with the umpire about that official.
Yet there was an unmistakable melancholy about the wish he expressed to be appreciated for only his tennis, when only he cannot see why his conduct forms a big part of the narrative.
When Sportsmail asked him if he felt that a lack of conflict with officials was better for him and for tennis, he could only return to that victimhood.
‘The media tends to just pick and choose anyway what they want to write about,’ he replied. ‘ Today there’s just absolutely nothing, which is hilarious.’
on court, an imperious doublehanded punched backhand volley sealed his place against Greek No 4 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the next round, in what should be a mouth-watering clash.
‘I just want to remind everyone that I’m pretty good,’ he declared, deadpan, in a courtside interview. ‘What’s it like inside the mind of Nick Kyrgios?’ the interviewer then boldly asked. ‘I’m just happy,’ he said. ‘I think this is my best chance to win a Grand Slam of all four.’
No one knows which Kyrgios will turn up next, but this version could go a very long way here.