Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios have long been close mates, but that friendship was … let’s go ahead and say ‘tested slightly’ this past week, when Kyrgios brought his buddy up during his now-infamous sledge.
In the heat of competition against Stan Warwinka, Kyrgios yelled “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell you that mate” at his opponent, setting off a social media shitstorm that continues to the present moment.
Kokkinakis learned of his mate’s sledge via Twitter – after an uncharacteristic loss in Montreal, he was watching the Kyrgios-Warwinka match on his laptop when, in his words, his phone “started going crazy.”
“I was watching it but I didn’t actually know it happened,” he said of the incident. “I found out via one of the Fox Sports guys that sent me a tweet. It was pretty crazy what happened.”
Kokkinakis was forced to clear the air with Croatian player Donna Vekic, the subject of the sledge, as well as Warwinka, but the harder part came when he had to confront his mate Kyrgios.
“He apologised to me,” Kokkinakis said. “I let him know, I made it pretty clear that he can’t be doing that. If he’s got a problem, he’s got to say it in private. The way he went about it definitely wasn’t the right thing.”
You’ve got to hand it to him – the man very clearly has a gift for understatement.
“Obviously he shouldn’t have said what he said under the circumstances,” Kokkinakis said. “But yeah, it is what it is and, yeah, got to move past it now.”
The young Aussie said that he’s had a few sleepless nights since the incident, and the fallout continued today, when he was confronted by American player Ryan Harrison during a Cincinnati Masters qualifying round.
Harrison tried to pick a fight with Kokkinakis during the match, telling him “your whole crew is just so cool” and (allegedly) calling him a “prick”, but the Aussie kept his cool and won 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (7/2)
via Fox Sports
Photo: Wayne Taylor via Getty Images
