During the quarter-final of the Indian Wells Masters in California, Nick Kyrgios continued his fan-roasting streak to the surprise of absolutely bloody no one.
Things weren’t going super well for Kyrgios who eventually lost to Rafael Nadal in straight sets 7-6 (6-0), 5-7, 6-4.
However, this didn’t stop Kyrgios from defending his title as the bad-boy of the world’s most civilised sport (aside from golf). A true source of pride for the 26-year-old.
🗣️ “Do I tell him how to act?!”
Nick Kyrgios responded brilliantly to a heckler, by referring to actor Ben Stiller in the Indian Wells crowd! pic.twitter.com/V25FE9cMgl
— Amazon Prime Video Sport (@primevideosport) March 18, 2022
After receiving lip from a random member of the crowd, Kyrgios responded with “are you good at tennis?”
To which the fan replied with an extremely sheepish “no”.
Kyrgios followed with “exactly, so why are you speaking?” which really took me back to grade three schoolyard and I’m totally here for it.
Then came the moment you’ve all been waiting for folks, the big finish. Kyrgios noticed that Ben Stiller was perched a few seats down from the loudmouth fan so naturally he worked Stiller into his material.
You know, like any good tennis player slash stand-up comedian would do?
“Do I tell him how to act? No” Kyrgios said in perhaps his biggest serve that night that drew audible chuckles from the rest of the crowd.
Even after the incident, Kyrgios wasn’t done. After he shook the referee’s hand, he performed a monster racket smash on the ground which saw his racquet nearly collide with a ball kid.
That came really close! pic.twitter.com/8Bg4fJYLQG
— Billy Bang (@villievang) March 18, 2022
Luckily, the ball kid dodged out of the way in the nick of time.
An uproar from the tennis community resulted in Kyrgios reaching out to the ball kid on Instagram to patch things over.
Made a new friend in the process 🤍 accidents happen but we can go out of our way to make things better 🥶👑 pic.twitter.com/G0gI5QpmBy
— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) March 18, 2022
It’s deffo not a great look smashing racquets in the first place but when it nearly takes the head off an innocent ball kid just trying to do their job? Even less so.
At the Australian Open in January, Kyrgios managed to get another dickhead fan kicked out of his doubles final alongside fellow Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis.
