sport news Nick Kyrgios' spitting poison must not be tolerated trends now
They were fretting about the seating before Nick Kyrgios walked on to court, asking those in one area to shuffle along because he is box office and he brings ‘very big demand’.
What happened across the course of the next three hours, though, posed the question of whether the tennis public really needs concerted, personalised, verbal abuse of line officials to feel it is being entertained.
By the end, as the young British player Paul Jubb showed Kyrgios what class looks like and took the match the distance, Court 3 began to display some partisan home support. But for much of the afternoon, you had to wonder why on God’s earth they were indulging a player who was behaving this way, when they could have got on his back.
Nick Kyrgios' actions at Wimbledon showed a lack of class and should not be tolerated
Kyrgios criticised supporters and admitted that he spat in the direction of an abusive fan
Much mirth was taken in the general verbal spectacle. More still in the sight of Kyrgios smashing a ball high over the top of the court in anger, after he was broken by Jubb in the first set. But it is fair to say the middle-aged woman who bore the brunt of the abuse had not signed up for this. ‘You’re the worst official,’ Kyrgios told her. ‘You’re a snitch,’ he added when she related the nature of his abuse to umpire Marija Cicak.
‘No one has come here to watch her do anything. Not one person. You know what I mean?’ he told Cicak, as the abuse of this woman went on. ‘I know you’ve got fans but she’s got none.’
A solitary voice from the crowd told it as it was, in that moment. ‘You’re s**t,’ someone shouted, a decent summation, and though no one really joined the chorus, the player in question did seem to consider himself disrespected. ‘I don’t start clapping when they are scanning s**t at a supermarket, do I?’ he complained.
The world No 13 didn't hold back in making his feelings clear about the crowd and the umpire
That is the thing about those who walk around nursing a sense of victimhood. It is never their fault.
It takes a particular kind of cretin to say, looking in the general direction of one of the older line officials: ‘These people in their 90s — they can’t see the ball.’ And not even to look them in the eye as he says it.
This was not as bad as individual acts of verbal abuse can get. It is 13 years now since Serena Williams was
