Controversial Australian tennis star and budding social media troll Nick Kyrgios has taken a swipe at a prominent tennis journalist – eight days after earning a reprimand from Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt for an inflammatory Instagram post.
Kyrgios posted a photo of Hewitt sitting courtside during compatriot Alex de Minaur’s second-round victory over Henri Laaksonen.
He added a caption, ‘Whose match is he watching?’ and included two choices: ‘Demon’ and ‘No One Else’.
The post, which was deleted almost immediately, followed Bernard Tomic’s explosive rant that accused Hewitt, among other things, of playing favourites with Davis Cup selections.
Hewitt later confirmed he confronted Kyrgios, who was on Tuesday left out of Australia’s Davis Cup squad, directly about his post and publicly declared, ‘I don’t think it’s a good look’.
But after staying relatively quiet on social media in recent days, the 23-year-old could not resist the temptation to troll New York Times journalist and regular sparring partner Ben Rothenberg on Thursday night.
Rothenberg tweeted to his 67,400 followers early in Rafael Nadal’s 6-2 6-4 6-0 semi-final demolition of rising star Stefanos Tsitsipas: “Gotta admit I would have never guessed that Nadal’s toughest match en route to the #AusOpen final would wind up being his R1 against James Duckworth, which is how it looks tonight.
“He’s just been absolutely destroying fellows out there.”
The veteran journalist’s argument is rock solid based on the numbers.
Aussie wildcard Duckworth went down to the legendary Spaniard, who is yet to drop a set in the tournament, 6-4 6-3 7-5 in the opening round.
Nadal's next three victims – Matthew Ebden, Alex de Minaur and Tomas Berdych – all won just seven games while American Frances Tiafoe stole nine games and Tsitsipas, who upset Roger Federer in the fourth round, could muster only six.
But Kyrgios retweeted Rothenberg’s observation with three laughing/crying emojis and the comment: ‘This tweet is wrong on so many levels.”
😂😂😂 this tweet is wrong on so many levels https://t.co/rJuwAR6PeC
— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) January 24, 2019
While Kyrgios’ puzzling retweet appears to be a swipe at world No.237 Duckworth, it is worth noting he has history with Rothenberg.
The pair most notably traded insults during the 2018 US Open in a war of words that went viral after Kyrgios reacted to a Rothenberg tweet promoting his story on Tsitsipas.
Kyrgios labelled Rothenberg a ‘keyboard warrior’ before calling him ‘chubs’ when the scribe offered to settle their dispute over cupcakes.
At the time of writing, Rothenberg had not responded to Kyrgios' latest barb.
