Six-time grand slam doubles champion Rennae Stubbs says Nick Kyrgios‘ outburst at his players’ box during the Wimbledon final was nothing short of “embarrassing.”
The Australian was left seething during the second set after he dropped serve for the first time in the match, yelling at his team.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he screamed.
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“Does it get any bigger or what? You want a bigger one – it’s not big enough for you? There’s no bigger match. Well done guys, I can’t do anything. Do you f—ing care or what?”
After he blew an opportunity to break back later in that set, despite having 0-40 on Djokovic’s serve, the 27-year-old exploded again.
“Say something!” he yelled. “It’s 0-40. God damn! It’s 0-40!”
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Stubbs, a two-time women’s doubles champion at Wimbledon, slammed Kyrgios’ actions on Twitter.
“Honestly, this behaviour of yelling at your box because they aren’t doing what u want, is actually beyond ridiculous,” she wrote.
“THEY CANT READ YOUR MIND! Yes this is his way of dealing with pressure, I get it but this is straight up constant abuse to people that love you, it’s embarrassing.”
https://twitter.com/Peter_Fitz/status/1546148951040004098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwhttps://twitter.com/AndyMaherDFA/status/1546149258323439619?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Kyrgios also made headlines for a run-in with the umpire over a fan who he said was “drunk out of her mind.”
The Australian acknowledged chair umpire Renaud Lichtenstein after the match, offering an apology for his behaviour.
“To all the ball kids and umpires, you and I have a very tough relationship at times, but I thought I’d thank you for putting up with it,” he said.
Writing in the UK Telegraph, chief sports writer Oliver Brown noted that Kyrgios’ “capacity for distraction extends beyond all known limits of human hearing.”
“A sparrow could chirp on Wimbledon Common and he would ask to speak to the supervisor to object,” he wrote.
“So, when one voluble woman was suspected of having drunk a few Pimm’s too many, he worked himself into a feral fury.
“Unfortunately, for the balance of this engrossing final, Kyrgios allowed this peripheral noise to nourish the demons in his head. One game, the ninth of the set, crystallised the unravelling.
“Two aces and an unreturnable brought up 40-0, a position from which, with his howitzer of a serve, he almost never wobbles. But in a first major final, with his composure frayed and tennis’ greatest returner facing him, he crumbled.”
Djokovic’s 21st grand slam title moves him one ahead of Roger Federer, and one behind Rafael Nadal, with Brown lamenting the fact that trying to beat the Serbian is like “throwing pebbles against a wall.”
“Djokovic is what Jurgen Klopp might call a “mentality monster”, who, in the defining moments, cuts out his unforced errors with an efficiency that makes him virtually impossible to beat,” he wrote.
“While Kyrgios goes to pieces at the faintest unfairness, whether real or perceived, the Serb never, as his 21 major titles attest, lets his concentration waver.”
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