Meltdown in Shanghai

Yesterday Nick Kyrgios, who won the Tokyo tournament last week, lost a match to Mischa Zverev, the older brother of rapidly rising star, Alexander Zverev.  Mischa is much older than his brother (29 vs. 19 years) and is a far less successful singles player.  His highest rank in singles has been 45, while the younger brother is now 21 in the world.  Kyrgios is ranked in the top 20 and obviously has great tennis talent.  So how was Mischa able to beat him?

The answer is simple: Kyrgios tanked the match in a manner so obvious that the fans, who paid good money to see the match, were outraged.  Kyrgios served balls underhanded and started to walk off the court before Zverev even hit the ball, made some fancy shots that clearly were not intended to win points, etc.  This performance was a more severe version of the behavior of his countryman, Bernard Tomic, who lost on match point earlier this year to Fabio Fognini by receiving serve while holding the wrong end of the racquet. 

In the post match interview, Kyrgios, like Tomic before him, was anything but contrite.  He stated that he owed absolutely nothing to the fans that had paid to watch the match.  In his post match interview after losing to Fognini, Tomic stated that he didn’t need to care about one match because he was already worth more than 10 million dollars at age 23.

Kyrgios was fined $16,500 for this performance and a suspension is being considered.  In my opinion a suspension through the 2017 Australian Open is needed.  If this incident was the only case of unsavory behavior by this player, perhaps the fine and a warning would be enough.  But remember that this is the guy who advised Stan Wawrinka, in the middle of a match and in front of the umpire’s microphone, that Wawrinka’s girlfriend was “banging” someone else.  This is the guy who lost a previous match at the US Open by retirement, after which John McEnroe tweeted that if Kyrgios doesn’t want to play tennis he should do something else.

This pattern of disrespectful behavior by Kyrgios, and to a lesser extent, Tomic, must stop.  Both of these men are well fixed financially, so a fine of $16,500 is not likely to impress Kyrgios enough.  Since the loss to Fognini, Tomic has played hard, so the problem with him seems under control.  But Nick needs to be barred from his home major next year so that he really gets the message.