-Delray Beach, Fla
It was the type of Nick Kyrgios match we’ve grown accustomed to in the 2nd Round at the Delray Beach Open. Big serves, crazy shots, a run-in with a fan, trouble with a linesperson and people questioning his effort. Kyrgios, still bothered by a nagging right knee injury lost in the second round at Delray Beach 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 to Radu Albot.
Kyrgios now ranked No. 64 in the world, started the match firing three aces winning his first service game at Love. One bomb registered 130 mph on the radar gun. However, it was all downhill for the rest of the opening set as Kyrgios was broken twice and made a slew of unforced errors. Things took an ugly turn in the latter part of the set when the Australian got into it with a fan. Unprovoked, a gentleman in the crowd told Kyrgios to give it some effort saying people paid good money to watch him play. Kyrgios responded with an expletive and told the man that no one forced him to come and watch and perhaps he should go and do something else if he didn’t like it. The crowd began to “boo” the 23-year old. Chair umpire Fergus Murphy immediately gave Kyrgios a code violation for swearing at the fan.
It’s certainly not the first time this has happened before but this time it seemed rather unwarranted from the crowd. Kyrgios admittedly wasn’t moving well but he just had a visit from the ATP trainer getting his injured knee taped up a few games earlier. However, when Kyrgios is hurt he outwardly begins to look disinteresting and it doesn’t look good. Rapid firing serves without bouncing the ball. laughing at his own mistakes and whacking forehands at rapid speed trying to end points quickly are some of his trademarks when it appears he doesn’t care.
In the second set it appeared Kyrgios had been broken to fall behind 3-2 after hitting a backhand wide. Kyrgios challenged the call despite thinking the ball would still be out. He even sat down in his chair not watching the replay. The call was overturned and shortly thereafter Kyrgios ended up firing two successive aces to stay on serve. A few games later Kyrgios got his only break of the match to go up 5-3 and then closed out the set a game later to force a decider.
There were more antics during the second set involving Kyrgios and a linesperson. Kyrgios appeared to be mocking and yelling at a particular linesperson mid-way through the set. He was accusing him of snitching to the chair umpire for swearing. The “discussion” increased during one of the changeovers. At the end of the second set when all the linespeople were leaving the court, Kyrgios was shown clapping his approval.
In the third more antics from Kyrgios. In the first game he pulled out the “SABR”, a point he won but a game he eventually lost. During the 2-1 changeover, Kyrgios was bobbing his shoulders to the beats of a Michael Jackson song playing in the stadium. He also fired a 131 mph second serve which missed and he ended up double faulting the game away to go down 3-1. That was the only break needed by Albot in the set as he went on to victory in an hour and 24 minutes.
“He’s on Youtube, he’s on TV, he’s everywhere you can watch what he is doing, you can see a little bit so you are ready,” said Albot. “It’s a very good win, I think Nick is a great player, for sure one of the best servers in the world. I’m happy. I beat Ivo first round, unbelievable serve, I beat Nick second round, unbelievable serve. Great win, very happy.”
When asked about the incident with the fan Kyrgios responded by saying “They come at me saying we paid good money to come me…I didn’t ask you to come spend money & come watch me play. You know what you are going to get. I didn’t come to your house & threaten you to come watch me play…I’m used to it man. When I win everything is fine, when I lose I get booed, simple as that.”
Kyrgios is expected to play at Indian Wells starting in a couple of weeks but his expectations can’t be high with his lingering knee injury. “I don’t know man, I can’t really afford to take any weeks off…I can’t really go home and rehab, you always have to travel. At this stage honestly I am probably going to have to rely on my serve and just try to scrape through”
@Sportshorn
