Enigmatic Australian Nick Kyrgios received strong support from Canadian star and former mixed doubles partner Eugenie Bouchard following his controversial Miami Open exit.
The 23-year-old swore at a fan who heckled him, smashed his racquet repeatedly, put his hand on the chair umpire’s leg during a patronising rant and produced an outrageous ‘tweener’ in a roller-coaster three-set loss to Borna Coric.
After the 4-6 6-3 6-2 defeat Kyrgios declared war on hecklers after admitting verbally abusing a fan during the fourth-round loss.
“I mean I played for two hours and 20 minutes and a guy just yells at me, ‘play some tennis’,” he said.
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“I’m not going to take it so I just said F you to him.
“Probably not needed but at that time when you’re competing in the heat of the moment, it’s (insults from fans) probably not what you want to hear.
“… I mean they pay money to see me play and they just scream out ridiculous things and I’m just not going to take it anymore.”
Not for the first time in his tumultuous career, the world No.33 copped plenty of criticism for his antics post-match.
But women’s world No.72 Bouchard posted a message of support declaring Kyrgios good for the sport to her 1.9 million Instagram followers.
The Canadian posted a photo of ESPN’s Dan Le Batard Show discussing the Canberran and wrote: “How is he not good for the sport? He has ESPN talking about tennis.”
Genie making points pic.twitter.com/zOM1LlOSDS
— Ricky Dimon (@Dimonator) March 27, 2019
Meanwhile, Kyrgios preferred to focus on the positives after the disappointing loss to Coric.
Lost the match, but I won the consolation prize of best tweener of all time (the commentator said so, so it has to be right, right?) haha 😂
— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) March 26, 2019
See you next year Miami.@Tennis TV https://t.co/yMtiqI0B2j
