The 2022 Wimbledon championships featured Nick Kyrgios’ career-best campaign at the All England Club.
Kyrgios made the final of the tournament, before ultimately losing to seven-time champion Novak Djokovic over four sets on Centre Court.
En route to a maiden Grand Slam final, the Australian encountered fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third round, in a match where tensions boiled over.
During the contest, both players were given warnings by the umpire, and Tsitsipas was given a point penalty after picking up two code violations, the first of which was for hitting a ball into the crowd that narrowly missed a spectator.
After the incident, Kyrgios asked for the supervisor to come onto the court and determine if the Greek star should be defaulted, but only a warning was issued.
The second code violation for the then-world number four was for his response to one of his opponent’s underarm serves, which led to him hitting the ball away in frustration.
Following the match, a defeated and agitated Tsitsipas spoke to the Wimbledon media about Kyrgios.
Stefanos Tsitsipas’ reaction after his match with Nick Kyrgios
When asked if Kyrgios goes over the line with his behaviour on court, Tsitsipas responded: “I like what his tennis has to bring to our sport. Like, he’s very different. That’s not a bad thing.
“But I don’t think there has been a single match I have played with him that he was behaving that way. There comes a point where you really get tired of it, let’s say.
“The constant talking, the constant complaining. I mean, I’m about to serve, and there is a big gap there that there is no tennis being played, which is the most important thing in the court.
“We are there to play tennis. We are not there to have conversations and dialogues with other people, except — especially actually, not “except” — especially when you really know that the referee is not going to overrule what he decided, you know.
“It’s really silly, in a way. The referee has made a decision. I don’t know. It’s just like, how are you even going to change his mind? It doesn’t work this way. You are there to play tennis. I have had a lot of experience with umpires.
“Yeah, it’s just like frustrating to see that people just get away with that. It’s frustrating.”
He continued: “Yeah, it’s constant bullying, that’s what he does. He bullies the opponents. He was probably a bully at school himself. I don’t like bullies. I don’t like people that put other people down.
“He has some good traits in his character, as well. But when he — he also has a very evil side to him, which if it’s exposed, it can really do a lot of harm and bad to the people around him.
“Myself, when I feel like other people disrespect me and don’t respect what I’m doing from the other side of the court, it’s absolutely normal from my side to act and do something about it.”
What Tsitsipas said should happen with Nick Kyrgios after losing to him
Tsitsipas was asked: “Do you think there comes a point when the players themselves, that you in the locker room, have to make a stand about this behaviour?”
He answered: “I wish we could all come together and put a rule in place. I don’t know. Something about talking. Why would you be talking while you’re playing? It makes no sense. You are out there to do your job. Tennis is “the” most important thing that we are doing out there.
“Every single point that I played today I feel like there was something going on on the other side of the net.
“I’m not trying to be distracted by that, because I know it might be intentional, because for sure he can play other way. And that’s his way of manipulating the opponent and making you feel distracted, in a way.
“There is no other player that does this. There is no other player that is so upset and frustrated all the time with something. It triggers it so easy and so fast.
“I really hope all of us players can come up with something and make this a cleaner version of our sport, have this kind of behaviour not accepted, not allowed, not tolerated, and move on better.”
Since his 2022 run, Kyrgios has not made an appearance at Wimbledon, and has only played at one Grand Slam event: the Australian Open this year.
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