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Nick Kyrgios' father accuses Wimbledon officials of double standards

Nick Kyrgios screams - AP
Nick Kyrgios screams - AP

The father of Nick Kyrgios has accused Wimbledon umpires of double standards and claimed that his controversial son would have been instantly disqualified on Saturday night if he had smashed a ball into the crowd.

Kyrgios was outraged when Stefanos Tsitsipas lashed out at the end of the second set and demanded that he was instantly awarded the match. Umpire Damien Dumusois instead only issued a code violation against Tsitsipas.

Tsitsipas and Kyrgios have now been respectively fined $10,000 and $4,000 for their on-court behaviour. Kyrgios is the only player in the men's or women's draw to have so far collected two individual fines during the tournament.

“My son would have been defaulted,” Giorgos Kyrgios told the BBC. “You’ve got to draw the line for everybody. I hate to see it for anyone. I feel sorry for all of them - the pressure is so much.”

Kyrgios, who was fined $10,000 for spitting towards a spectator in the first round, went on to win the match and has been rewarded with Centre Court billing on Monday against the American Brandon Nakashima. Tsitsipas branded Kyrgios a “bully” with an “evil” streak following his four set defeat in what was one of Wimbledon’s most bad-tempered ever matches.

Kyrgios and Nakashima are both unseeded for the tournament but Wimbledon, whose court selections also take into account the BBC’s preferences, have plumped for Kyrgios’s box-office appeal ahead of several players above him in the world rankings.

Giorgos Kyrgios argued that his son’s match against Tsitsipas had been “good for tennis” even though most experts thought that their furious antics had gone much too far. “You’re going to cross the line when you’re swearing at the umpire in conversation and you’re certainly crossing the line when you’re hitting a ball into the crowd like that,” said Tim Henman, who is on the All England Club’s committee. “There’s no doubt that Tsitsipas is extremely lucky. If that ball hits a spectator, certainly in the head, you’re going to be disqualified (watch video below).

“He’s got a point penalty and when you hear him talking about the frustration in the cold light of day of a match, he’s lost the plot. Playing against Kyrgios, you’ve got to expect those antics. He’ll get fined, but Tsitsipas is the one who’s been distracted. He’s the one who’s lost.”

As well as being warned for swearing, Kyrgios asked the umpire if he was “dumb” while Tsitsipas lost his composure and tried to hit his opponent with a smash. Mats Wilander, a seven-times Grand Slam champion, was among those unimpressed. “Is it entertaining? Yes. Is it respectful? No," Wilander told Eurosport. "Is the tennis great at times? Unbelievable, because both players are such good players. And Kyrgios is so talented.

"I've never seen anything like it. I'm not sure I want to see something like that again to be honest, because I don't think this is what we want to promote in tennis. We want to not promote it as entertainment.

"We want to promote it as inspirational, educational, but this is what people maybe want to see. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of what's going on to be honest."

Kyrgios has already received multiple fines in his tennis career and responded to Tsitsipas’s “bully” charge by calling the allegations "soft" and claiming that the Greek had "serious issues".

Former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli said that the match had veered from “fun” to totally unacceptable behaviour. “Whether you like Nick [Kyrgios] or you don't you can't deny he makes people animated,” she said. “I don't like to see the part where they're trying to hit each other with the ball but the other part is fun. I think bullying the referees or the linesman or the ball kids sometimes - that is totally unacceptable and that has to stop, period.”