Angry Kyrgios spits at ‘disrespectful’ fan
Nick Kyrgios (Aus) bt Paul Jubb (GB)
Nick Kyrgios has admitted he deliberately spat towards a Wimbledon fan who was “disrespecting me” and railed against the tennis authorities for doing “nothing” about relentless “racism”.
The Australian said he was subjected to abuse rather than racism in beating Britain’s Paul Jubb on Court No 3 but, following a furious oncourt display in which he called a line judge “a snitch”, doubled down on his criticism of officials and fans.
“A lot of disrespect was being thrown today from the crowds,” he said. “It’s a whole generation of people on social media feeling they have a right to comment on every single thing with negativity. It carries on to real life. Spectators in general think there’s no line anymore.” Asked if he spat towards a fan, Kyrgios said: “Of one of the people disrespecting me? Yes.”
Kyrgios had earlier hit out at Jubb over an apparent comment during the match. “You can’t f---ing talk to me in the middle of the point when I’m about to do a backhand, it can’t be happening bro,” he said.
Kyrgios also urged umpire Marija Cicak to remove disruptive fans. “Where’s the line? That’s acceptable, racism is acceptable, so when does it stop?” he said.
He was also angry with a line judge, calling her a “snitch” and accusing her of acting “selfishly”.
Of the spectators who he thought were abusive, he said: “They should be removed. I don’t go up to their face in their 9-5 and start clapping when they’re scanning s--- at a supermarket.”
Administrators will decide if Kyrgios should be disciplined for his comments and behaviour, notably the spit. The umpire must notify the tournament referee’s office of oncourt concerns.
Kyrgios added: “My family deals with hate messages. I deal with hate messages. They just move on like nothing happened. They’re back out there refereeing, umpiring. You have no idea how much abuse I have to go through.”
3-6, 6-1, 7-5, 6-7, 7-5
Spending three hours in Nick Kyrgios’s company on Court No3 was akin to being trapped in a room with a profane Australian version of Alan Bennett as he wove all of life’s frustrations, both real and imagined, into an endless monologue of rage.
Whether it was the spectators, the officials, or simply a butterfly fluttering its wings in the next postal district, he turned a firstround match against a British wild card into a baroque diatribe against all the injustices of the universe.
For five riveting sets in which Paul Jubb, his British opponent, uttered barely a word, Canberra’s rebel without a cause fired off rants as scattergun as they were bizarre. Jubb, a 22-year-old from Hull orphaned before the age of four, looked nonplussed as Kyrgios turned on him in only the fourth game. “You can’t f---ing decide to talk to me in the middle of the point when I’m about to hit a backhand, it can’t be happening, bro,” the world No40 snapped.
But by far his greatest angst was reserved for the crowd. Already peeved by a few people crying out during rallies, he called on umpire Marija Cicak to order that one woman be ejected from the arena. “They’re spectators, they don’t have any right to do that,” he shouted at her. “They should be removed. I don’t go up in their face during their nine-to-five and start clapping when they’re scanning s--- at a supermarket. Why does it keep happening?”
There is nothing quite like endearing yourself to your public by mocking the perceived mundanity of their jobs relative to yours. At the changeovers, his laments only grew louder. “So, pure disrespect from a spectator to an athlete is acceptable at Wimbledon?” he asked Cicak, rhetorically. “Where’s the line? Racism is acceptable, so where does it stop? It has been happening for years.”
Kyrgios claimed that he had heard racist abuse during his semi-final defeat by Andy Murray in Stuttgart this month. While nobody should downplay the severity of such allegations, he did not help himself with the paranoia he displayed here, observing provocations from everybody and everything. When he was not quarrelling with fans, he directed his ire at the grass for being too green and too slow, the line judges for being too old, and even the electronic scoreboards for flickering too much.
For all the pyrotechnics of his play, Kyrgios can still be a flagrant, unpleasant narcissist. Throughout an abject first set, which he lost 6-3 in only 23 minutes, his baiting of one lineswoman was especially unedifying. Having thwacked a ball out of court, he accused her of being a “snitch” when he received a formal warning. “No one person has come to watch her do anything, not one person,” he complained to Cicak. “I know you’ve got fans, but she has got none.” Soon after, he said to the official’s face: “You’re the worst line judge in the world.”
One of her colleagues, an older woman, then had the temerity to correct herself on a call as she stood behind him. “These people are in their nineties,” Kyrgios muttered. “They can’t even see the ball.”
In an extraordinary press conference after this match, he invited journalists to study the abuse he has received on Instagram, describing how his brother Christos had been mocked as a cancer patient because of his alopecia. Reprehensible as that is, he does not countenance any alternative perspective, or consider that umpires can also suffer unspeakable abuse online.
In Kyrgios’s mind, he is alone in enduring hateful treatment, and after a while this orgy of self-pity becomes tiresome.
At times against Jubb, Kyrgios did reach into the repertoire of audacious shot-making that has long acted as a counterpoint to his pantomime villainy. So often with Kyrgios, though, the tennis is rendered incidental by the tirades.
Within moments of the winning point, he spat over the court, in the direction of the fans he accused of antagonising him. It was an awful spectacle, but one that gave him not the slightest pause for reflection.
It was a suitably splenetic ending to this latest instalment of the Kyrgios Show, played out to an audience split straight down the middle between those who love him and those who loathe him.