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Nick Kyrgios has been accused of “misogyny” by fans and journalists after his latest controversy on social media.
Kyrgios was responding to a social media account which appeared to goad the Australian player with a photo of Kyrgios and his ex-girlfriend Anna Kalinskaya.
Kyrgios replied: “Second serve.”
While he didn’t elaborate on what he meant, and later deleted the post, Krygios’s comment was interpreted by many social media users as a vulgar comment towards Kalinskaya who is now with a new partner, the world No 1 Jannik Sinner.
Tennis writer Olly Paton of tennismajors.com tweeted an image of Kyrgios’s post along with the words: “Kyrgios about Kalinskaya (who is Nick’s ex-girlfriend and Sinner’s current partner),” and a ‘face-palm’ emoji.
Kyrgios replied: “Right… so I’m the one that’s the bad guy for saying something about it? I never brought it up lol. Don’t take offence if people are gonna bring it up. Simple.”
US broadcaster Jon Wertheim posted on X: “Nick Kyrgios once made a misogynistic, wildly inappropriate comment about a WTA player, drew the anger of her ATP player boyfriend, his coach, and much of the locker room…but didn’t face real consequence, dismissed, as it was, as youthful indiscretion. That was 2015. He’s 29 now”.
Tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg tweeted: “Honestly a bit surprised to see ESPN didn’t yank Nick Kyrgios off air mid-#USOpen final, seeing his most recent disparaging tweet about a WTA player circulating. Given his history of demeaning women, women’s tennis, and WTA players, it was already a dubious choice to have him.”
Another X user said: “ESPN, Kyrgios is a misogynist. His tennis career is over and he has no respect for the players or the game. Get rid of him”.
ESPN has not commented on Kyrgios’s role.
Another user accused Kyrgios of being “abusive”, to which he replied: “Abusive? What’s abusive about what I said? I had no intention to say anything about it. People wanna go there deal with the consequences.”
Kyrgios had previously been outspoken against Sinner last month when he said that the Italian should have been banned from tennis for testing positive for small traces of the banned performance-enhancing drug Clostebol.
Kyrgios – who last year avoided a criminal conviction after he admitted assaulting his ex-girlfriend – lambasted the Sinner ruling.
“Ridiculous – whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned substance ... you should be gone for 2 years. Your performance was enhanced,” Kyrgios said on X.
Hey @espn I’m not watching your coverage of tomorrow’s @usopen final if Nick Kyrgios is commentating. Do you really support him after today’s disgusting, inappropriate tweet?
— Claire (@Clairvoyant94) September 7, 2024
Sinner – who plays American Taylor Fritz in the US Open final on Sunday night – was absolved of wrongdoing by an independent tribunal, which accepted his explanation of inadvertent contamination by a physiotherapist.
Last week, Sinner suggested he was happy to let bygones be bygones if he comes face to face with Kyrgios in an on-court interview in his broadcasting role.
“I don’t want to respond on what he said. Everyone is free to say everything, so it’s OK,” Sinner said. “If that is the case, let’s see. It’s going to be different, for sure, but I don’t know.
“I don’t know what to say. Maybe if I say something now, and then the reaction is going to be something else because you live in this moment. But I’m always quite relaxed. I’m someone who forgets quite fast something. As I said, everyone is quite free to say everything, so it is what it is.”
