Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis return to the doubles court this week for the first time since their Australian Open victory, and the draw for the Indian Wells tournament has thrown up two potentially mouth-watering clashes.
In an Australian Open full of surprises, the ‘Special Ks’ provided one of the feelgood stories of the tournament, taking out their maiden Grand Slam title.
But there was controversy along the way, with the raucous home crowd support for the pair rubbing a number of opponents up the wrong way.
Kyrgios and Kokkinakis will open their Indian Wells campaign against Ivan Dodig and Mercelo Melo, but it’s the potential second round match that will have the tennis world salivating.
That’s when the Australians could face the top seeded pair of Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic, a rematch of their second round clash in Melbourne.
Mektic and Pavic said afterwards that the crowd failed to “show respect” while Kyrgios alleged that the coach and trainer of the pair wanted to fight him in the players’ gym.
“Just letting you know after yesterday’s chop fest in doubles my opponents coach and trainer proceeded to threaten to fight in the players gym,” Kyrgios tweeted.
https://twitter.com/NickKyrgios/status/1484660699557412864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Pavic later called Kyrgios a “clown” and an “idiot”.
“He showed that by playing doubles you can fill a stadium,” Pavic said on Sport Klub’s Wish & Go podcast.
“The fans were not fair. If is difficult to play in these conditions against Kokkinakis and especially Kyrgios, who is — to be politically correct, a clown and an idiot.
“He gets away with a lot and he doesn’t respect his opponents. On the one hand we have a player like Monfils, who is a showman, who respects his opponents and is interesting for the fans; and (then there is) Kyrgios (who) is full of disrespect and an ordinary clown.”
Should Kyrgios and Kokkinakis advance to the quarter finals at Indian Wells, their potential opponents would be the sixth seeds, Michael Venus and Tim Puetz.
After the Australian pair beat Venus and Puetz at the Australian Open in January, Venus launched an extraordinary attack on Kyrgios, once again complaining about the atmosphere on the brand new Kia Arena.
“It felt like a circus out there and not really a tennis match,” Venus told the New Zealand television channel 1News.
“Between serves [they were] geeing the crowd up and getting them to cheer at times like that. I don’t think that’s really on.
“You know if it’s on the other foot, old mate [Kyrgios] would have flipped his lid. He already did get mad there by himself. It’s amazing, he can smash a ball out that hits a kid and just because he gives them a racquet afterwards people can say he’s such a good guy.”
“They’ll always be his supporters and he’ll always spin it in a way that helps him but at the end of the day, he’s just an absolute knob,” Venus added.
“On the maturity side, you see why he’s never fulfilled his potential and probably never will. His maturity level, it’s probably being generous to a 10-year-old, to say it’s at about that level.”
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