Greek tennis star Stefanos Tsitsipas has reignited his rivalry with old foe Nick Kyrgios as the fallout from the Aussie’s sudden withdrawal from Thursday’s United Cup opener continues.
Kyrgios pulled out of the three-city teams event on Wednesday - barely 24 hours before his scheduled match - citing the need to overcome an ankle injury ahead of next month’s Australian Open.
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The world No.22 was expected to spearhead the Australian team’s tilt in Sydney but withdrew from the mixed-gender tournament ahead of a scheduled press conference.
Teammates and fans may have been blindsided by Kyrgios’s last-minute decision but Tsitsipas said it was “not a surprise”.
“I hope he enjoys his holidays,” Tsitsipas said from Perth as he prepared for Greece’s United Cup opener.
The tennis stars’ long-running feud is clearly still front of mind for Tsitsipas after it came to a head at Wimbledon this year.
In the fallout from Kyrgios’s win in a third-round match filled with controversy, Tsitsipas claimed the Australian had an “evil side” to him.
The fiery match nearly boiled into chaos when a frustrated Tsitsipas hit the ball into the crowd after losing the second set.
“You can’t hit a ball into the crowd and hit someone and not get defaulted,” said Kyrgios, who received an audible obscenity warning during the match.
Tensions again were high in the post-match press conferences, with fourth seed Tsitsipas saying the match felt like a “circus” and Kyrgios was “probably a bully at school himself - I don’t like bullies”.
Kyrgios fired back by labelling his opponent “soft” among other things.
Speaking prior to the United Cup, Tsitsipas spoke about the difficulties players face when coming up against the controversial Aussie.
“You cannot concentrate on your own game, there is so much noise coming from the other side of the net,” Tsitsipas said of Kyrgios.
“It’s distracting, you have to be at your best to overcome it all.
“I don’t know where all of his energy comes from. There is so much of it, I don’t know how he does it.”
The dynamic duo became the most unlikely doubles pairing after teaming up at a recent tournament in Saudi Arabia after both lost in the singles draw.
“Who would have thought,” Tsitsipas wrote on Twitter after Kyrgios advertised their match against Hubert Hurkacz and Dominic Stricker.
Kyrgios later shared a photo of he and Tsitsipas on Instagram with the caption: “how it’s going vs how it started”.
Meanwhile, the feud between Kyrgios and Norway’s world No.3 Casper Ruud seems to have cooled in recent times.
The rivalry started during their first match at the Italian Open in 2019 when Kyrgios threw a chair and was defaulted.
After his win, Ruud labelled Kyrgios “an idiot on the court” and said he should be banned from tennis for six months.
The Australian hit back on Twitter, daring Ruud to say it to his face and stating that he’d “rather watch paint dry then watch you play tennis”.
At Indian Wells this year Kyrgios beat Ruud 6-4 6-4 and looked straight down the camera after the win and said: “I hear no talking now. None.”
The 24-year-old Ruud conceded there had been “a little feud” but added that it had thawed.
“I didn’t receive a Christmas card from him nor he a Chrissie one from me but if we see each other we can say hello. There are no hard feelings,” Ruud said on Wednesday at a Norwegian team media conference ahead of the United Cup.
“You don’t want to have a feud going on against him because he will probably want to bring his A game whenever he plays you.
“He came to me in the Laver Cup last year in Boston and congratulated me after my victory so he has been positive and cheering me on the last year or so.
“It was (good) to see him do so well at Wimbledon (this year) and coaching himself to the final.”
- With AAP
