Stefanos Tsitsipas apologized to Nick Kyrgios for his questionable comments but the Australian refused to do the same after a fan urged him to.
Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas played a very heated match at last year's Wimbledon which kind of started a feud between the players. There have been some minor sparks there before but Tsitsipas escalated the feud after the match with some interesting comments.
It didn't really stop since then as the Greek player had some things to say for Kyrgios who largely didn't really engage too much with Tsitsipas. In a recent Break Point episode, Tsitsipas claimed that Kyrgios' has an 'uneducated' approach to tennis.
It was a questionable comment that didn't find much approval amongst fans with some claiming that it had racial undertones as the Greek drew that conclusion for Kyrgios' love for basketball.
After the backlash, Tsitsipas apologized for the comments with a lengthy statement where he denounced both racism and any other type of discrimination. It was applauded by some fans with Kyrgios responding with some nice words as well.
It was a very heated battle 🙏🏽 sometimes as players we go into these press conferences without digesting the match…. We’ve had some crazy battles and I know deep down you like my brand of tennis 👀🤷🏽♂️ we are all good
A fan responded to that apology by asking Kyrgios to apologize for one of his comments earlier in his career when he admitted that he was aiming at Rafael Nadal during one of their matches. Back then Kyrgios refused to apologize while confirming that he did aim at Nadal, even saying that he was going for his chest. Even now, Kyrgios refused to apologize confirming that he meant what he said.
Journalist: "Did you aim it straight at Nadal?"
Kyrgios: "I was going for him, yeah. I wanted to hit him square in the chest. I’m not going to apologise."
No. I meant that.