Nick doesn’t have the best luck with tennis officials…
Nick Kygrios has run into a bit of trouble during his Australian Open experience, getting into hot water with an umpire after he awarded him a time violation. To give you a brief rundown, now that the Aus open is subject to numerous COVID-19 restrictions, ball kids are no longer able to bring towels to players between points, which means players have to fetch them themselves when they want to cool off.
Thus, abiding by the rules, naturally it takes a bit longer to serve when you’re taking that extra time to walk to and from the towel. Unluckily, it seems umpire Nacho Forcadell wasn having it, awarding Nick a time violation and prompting him to storm off the court.
“Bro, I just started serving,” Kyrgios said. “I was in my motion, what are you talking about? I’m not playing, I’m not playing.”
And in some crowd participation that definitely wasn’t necessary, punters started laughing as Kygrios made his way to the bench after the violation, because apparently taking the piss out of players is part of the responsibility of a tennis crowd.
But alas, this is Nick Kyrgios we’re talking about. Old mate isn’t just gonna take some bullshit like this lying down, going off at Forcadell as he said “I’m not f***ing moving. It’s like you guys do it to just be funny. Bro, I was serving. Why’d you have to call it? Because the tennis is about the umpires, right? They come to see you. You’re an extra. You’re an extra for all of us. Tennis isn’t about him . He’s an extra to make all this s**t go smoothly, so why is he doing this?
“I have to walk back and forth to get my towel now, so he’s a smarta*** and calls it? And now I have to get fined for it, but I was playing by the rules.”
This is ridiculous especially when you compare it to other players on tour like Nadal and Djokovic.
Kyrgios is one of the quicker servers on tour 😂
— Lachlan McKirdy (@LMcKirdy7) February 3, 2021
The whole interaction lasted around five minutes, but luckily Kyrgios was able to get his bearing and claim the match with a 6-2 7-6 victory, taking him through to the next round where he’ll face Croatia’s Borna Coric.
Pretty intense scenes. Fingers crossed Nick doesn’t have to deal with similar bullshit any time soon. Check out his post match interview below to see the Canberra talent display a maturity far beyond that of the Aus Open crowd (or umpires).
