Nick Kyrgios endured a tricky match against Stefanos Tsitsipas at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, which featured a couple of heated moments, but he showed great respect for his opponent after the match.
Tsitsipas and Kyrgios aren't exactly the best friends and their match in London confirmed it. There were some interesting moments in the match as Kyrgios' antics got under the skin of Tsitsipas, who showed a tremendous amount of frustration.
Tsitsipas isn’t really known as a player who creates a lot of drama on the ATP Tour, and he clearly didn’t really know what to do at the moment. At one point, he slammed the ball toward the crowd dangerously, which luckily didn’t injure anybody.
Kyrgios asked the umpire to default his opponent, but the umpire didn’t do it. Tsitsipas then also aimed at Kyrgios a few times, which seemed intentional. The longer the match went on, the more Tsitsipas lost his cool.
Eventually, the Greek player simply didn’t really know what to do and it negatively affected his game. Although Tsitsipas won the opening set, Kyrgios was able to turn around the match, and after the match, the Australian spoke highly of Tsitsipas, admitting that he loves him.
It was an interesting way to phrase the sentence considering how the match looked, but seemingly, Kyrgios separates private life from on-court life. He’s close to his brothers as well, according to his post-match comments.
At the end of the day, they do share some common things, like being Greek, but that might not be enough to bond them after such a fiery encounter.
"Hell of an atmosphere, amazing match. I felt like a favourite. He's a hell of a player. He was getting frustrated at times, it's a frustrating sport, that's for sure. I got ultimate respect for him. Whatever happens on the court, stays on the court. I love him. I'm close to his brothers."