By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, March 25, 2022
When Nick Kyrgios surveys the ATP landscape, he sees one player operating at the opposite end of the style spectrum.
Jenson Brooksby.
The explosive Kyrgios cites the cerebral Brooksby as the one player who's "my polar opposite."
After destroying seventh-ranked Russian Andrey Rublev, 6-3, 6-0 in a Miami Open thrashing today, Kyrgios praised Brooksby's style as "very strange...but awesome."
"So he's going to be someone we're going to have to nurture and actually care for in our sport," Kyrgios said of Brooksby. "He's incredibly talented. He's unorthodox.
"He's my polar opposite I think like on the court, like he's very strange, I guess, to watch but he's awesome."
Though they play disparate styles, the pair were connected this week when Brooksby hurled his racquet in a rage a couple of times in his Miami three-set win over Federico Coria. Brooksby's second racquet hurl went into the corner and touched the ball persona's foot.
Coria, whose older brother Guillermo Coria once hurled a racquet at Roland Garros accidentally hitting a ball kid, asserted Brooksby could have been defaulted for the action.
It came a week after Kyrgios bounced his racquet in disgust after losing a thrilling Indian Wells quarterfinal to Rafael Nadal. The nimble ball kid narrowly avoided the racquet hopping out of the way.
Kyrgios showed support for Brooksby saying "I don't think he meant any harm."
"I'm not one to judge anyone's behavior. But at the same time, yeah, he's a young kid, he's coming up, and I think he's going to have a lot of eyes on him," Kyrgios said. "I wasn't the best role model growing up on tour, and I don't think at times I am. At times I think I'm a great role model. I think, like everyone knows, he held himself accountable. He knows it's not the right thing to do.
"I can't see him being a personality where he's going to kind of say, F-you, like it's not-okay-type thing. I don't think that's the right way to go about it, as well. Obviously it's not right, but he didn't mean it. I don't think he meant any harm."
In case you're wondering, Brooksby and Kyrgios reside in opposite halves of the Miami Open draw and could only meet in the final.
Photo credit: Getty