Ajla Tomljanovic was left unhappy after her Wimbledon quarterfinal loss when the first question of her press conference was about the assault allegations against her ex-boyfriend Nick Kyrgios.
The Australian worked really hard to make the quarterfinal, including coming from a set behind in the round of 32 and round of 16 against last year's French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova and Alize Cornet, respectively.
She faced Elena Rybakina in the quarterfinal on Court 1. Despite winning the first set, Tomljanovic missed out on reaching her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, falling 6-4, 2-6, 3-6 to the Kazakhstani.
Tomljanovic and Rybakina's match was entertaining and featured many great rallies. Understandably, the Australian probably expected all the questions in her press conference to be about the match, or at least the first few questions.
Instead, Tomljanovic was immediately asked about the assault allegations against Kyrgios, who she dated a couple of years ago. She took to social media afterward to express her annoyance about it.
Quite disappointing that after almost 2 hours of playing my quarterfinals that that was the first question the journalist chose to ask me, and never proceeded to ask anything match related. Glad to see headlines mostly about that now. Do better.
Journalists asking Tomljanovic about a significant breaking story involving her ex-boyfriend was always likely to happen. She was probably expecting to be asked about it at some point.
However, Tomljanovic's frustration at being asked about that before anything related to her match is entirely understandable. After the effort she put in against Rybakina, it was disrespectful for Kyrgios' assault case to be the main focus instead of her match.
Hopefully, Tomljanovic realizes many people respect what a terrific tournament she had at Wimbledon. It was her second quarterfinal appearance at SW 19, and it might not be her last if she keeps playing at such a high level.