Nick Kyrgios has again blasted chair umpire Carlos Bernardes for his “dreadful, horrendous” performance in the loss to Jannik Sinner in Miami, and also pointed the finger at the ATP after the match, for supposedly not standing up for its players.
Kyrgios, who in recent weeks claimed he was “happy” and “in peace”, had a meltdown similar to the one fans witnessed against Rafael Nadal at Indian Wells, during the 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 loss to the Italian.
READ MORE: Kyrgios meltdown punctuates ugly Miami loss
READ MORE: Arnold under fire as Socceroos sink to new low
READ MORE: ‘Risky’ coaching trio gets tick of approval
The world No. 102 was penalised a game in the second set for smashing his racquet – then posed for a selfie with a fan who ran onto the court.
At the end of the match, Kyrgios shook Sinner’s hand and exchanged a few pleasantries with his opponent.
When Sinner shook hands with Bernardes, as is customary, Kyrgios passed by him and added a few more words before packing up his racquet bag and walking off the court.
Asked to explain what happened during the match at the press conference after his doubles win alongside Thanasi Kokkiankis, Kyrgios replied: “I got frustrated. Can I not get frustrated? Do you get frustrated? Next question.”
However, it didn’t take long for Kyrgios to serve up another slam at Bernardes.
“I don’t personally care, because I know I’m a good person … but I don’t understand what could you possibly fine me for today,” he said.
“That’s the thing. He’s going to get nothing. He’s not even going to get a slap on the wrist for his dreadful umpiring performance today. Like he was horrendous.
“But the ATP won’t do anything about him. There will be no bad articles on him. He will just show up in the next event, and everyone just forgets how bad that was today from him.
“But again, I will have to deal with the negativity, I will have to deal with the bad comments, my girlfriend has to deal with the bad comments, my team has to deal with the bad comments.
“I just don’t think he controls the crowd well at all, in my personal opinion, I just don’t think my point penalty was worth a point penalty,”’ he added.
“Literally, all I said to my team was I thought Matthew Reid, an ex-tennis player, could do just as good a job in the umpire’s chair.
“And if that’s worth a point penalty at 5-3 in the first-set tiebreak in the fourth round of Miami, a Masters event for hundreds of thousands of dollars, then you decide. But I think it’s ridiculous.”
At one point during the match, a fan told Bernardes to shut up and Kyrgios led applause by clapping on his racquet.
“When everyone in that crowd is booing an umpire and he’s becoming the centre of attention, that’s not his job because no one in that entire stadium bought a ticket to hear him talk,” Kyrgios said.
“You’ve got Jannik Sinner, one of our greatest stars who’s going to do great things, and myself, don’t mean to toot my own horn but the majority of the people are there to see me play and you’ve got a guy talking – I’m 40-love up and he’s talking and I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’
https://twitter.com/NickKyrgios/status/1508967645856645122?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“The crowd hated him that much they told him to be quiet, and he’s disrupting my service game. I’ve never been a part of a match where an umpire was hated that much.”
When asked if he expected to be sanctioned by the ATP, Kyrgios said the governing body needed to do more to protect “star” players.
“(Denis) Shapovalov nailed a ball in someone’s eyeball and got 5-grand (fine). I threw a racquet, didn’t even hit anyone, and got 25-grand.
“Where is balance? How much do I bring the sport? That’s the problem with tennis. We don’t protect our stars. We love to outcast them. ATP never defends its players, stands up for them. I’ve been used to it my whole career. It sucks.”
Speaking earlier in the week, the Aussie said he was in a better space mentally after going through a trying time earlier in his career.
“I felt like I constantly played so much under that mental stress and negativity that I genuinely just couldn’t function anymore with the pressure,” Kyrgios said earlier this week. “I couldn’t function with the negativity.
“Every day was just constant negativity from you guys, from eventually my family, eventually from my friends, from everyone. There was no positivity, and it was just eating me up and I just genuinely hated my life. It’s taken a long time … but I’m just happy now.”
Both Kyrgios and Kokkinakis suffered tough singles defeats earlier in the day, although that didn’t seep through into their doubles play, defeating the No. 3 seeds Horacio Zeballos and Marcel Granollers 7-5, 6-2, while exhibiting the same type of flair and teamwork that led to their maiden Grand Slam win at the Australian Open.
The Aussie pair, who have won nine of their 10 doubles matches together in 2022, converted three of their five break points and never dropped serve to cruise to a straight sets victory.
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!