By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday March 17 2022
There’s never a dull moment when Nick Kyrgios plays tennis, but sometimes there are some scary ones. Tonight the Aussie lost his discipline after his three-set loss to Rafael Nadal at Indian Wells, and nearly hit a ball kid with his racquet after he smashed it on the court.
There’s full video of how it happened below:
After the match Kyrgios was angry at a New York times reporter that asked about the incident, and he really let him have it in the press conference.
Here’s a snippet from the transcript.
Q. You are obviously an emotional player, but are you aware how close you came to hitting the ball boy with your racquet after the match and what, do you have something to say about it?
NICK KYRGIOS: What would you like me to say about it? Obviously, was that my intention? No. Because I threw the racquet. Did I throw the racquet anywhere near him originally? It landed a meter from my foot and skidded and nearly hit him. I'm human. Things happen like that. Obviously it was a very misfortunate bounce. I think if I did that a million times over it wouldn't have gone that way.
And what do you want me to say? It was three meters away from the kid. That's a question you're going to say after a three-hour battle against Nadal? That's what you come here with?
Q. Well, I saw a kid duck –
NICK KYRGIOS: He ducked. Duck. He ducked. He ducked. He ducked. He ducked. Jesus. All right.
Well, if that's what you're going to come in here to come ask me, it didn't hit him. It was an accident. It most definitely wasn't like Zverev. It was complete accident. I didn't hit him, thankfully. It wasn't my intention. So thankfully the ball kid's okay.
Great question, though. Unbelievable stuff.
Not long after the press conference, Kyrgios took to Twitter to apologize for what happened. He even managed to get in contact with the ball kid and arranged to get him a new racquet on site on Friday at Indian Wells.
Still, many are upset about the fact that Kyrgios endangered someone on the court, and had things gone differently, the kid – or somebody else – could have been hurt.