After a tight, straight sets win at the French Open over Italian Marco Cecchinato in which Nick Kyrgios got into an argument with an umpire, the fiery Australian discussed how he believes he is treated differently by officials simply due to reputation. Despite a tightly contested match, Kyrgios kept a calm demeanor at his press conference, keeping his emotions in check while not directly calling out the chair umpire, nor the ball kid.
Kyrgios on the incident
Midway through the first set tiebreak after a long, entertaining point, Nick Kyrgios asked one of the ball kids for a towel. Due to the crowd's loud cheering and a potential language barrier between English and French, the ball kid did not hear the Aussie, prompting Kyrgios to say it louder. After chair umpire Carlos Ramos heard Kyrgios raise his voice at the ball kid, the veteran Spanish official gave Kyrgios a code violation, provoking an argument between the two, but to no avail for the 17th seed.
After the match at his press conference, the Australian number one had things to say about the incident. When asked about his take on the code violation, Kyrgios said, "Definitely. I thought it was a little bit rough. Yeah, I mean, I can't do anything about it now. Obviously it was just his personal opinion on how he thought that I went about it, but, I mean, it is what it is."
Later when asked about if he believed he was treated differently and more scrutinized by officials due to reputation, Kyrgios said, "No, not really. They're all just -- I haven't had too many bad experiences. It's not an easy job out there. Especially five-set matches, to concentrate, I think they do a good job. All in all, they do a good job," added the world number 19.
During his argument with the chair umpire, the 21-year-old referenced an incident last week in Rome, where world number one Novak Djokovic laid a hand on the chair umpire when looking at a crucial ball mark.
After the match when asked if he felt the world number one somewhat got away with it due to a better reputation for on-court behavior, Kyrgios said, "I mean, I think we all know in this room if that was me that did that, it would be an absolute circus. But if he did it, you know, nothing really happened of it. It speaks for itself."
Kyrgios on how he moved on from the altercation
"I thought I dealt with it okay. It didn't put me off too much. Of course it's frustrating, but I think with someone like me that's pretty emotional it can frustrate me a little bit, but I felt like I dealt with it pretty well," said the young Aussie.
"I thought -- you know, focus in that first set is obviously very crucial to win in a best-of-five match."
Asked about if receiving a violation was fair, Kyrgios said, "Yeah. I think, you know, every time I get a towel from a ball kid I say thank you. Sometimes when you're a bit frustrated you do -- obviously, you know, not scream at them but you do get a little mad at them."
"For me that time I didn't get mad at all. I just said it a little bit loud. The crowd was going on. And if we're going to play by the rules, you have 20 seconds in between points, so I'm not going to wait for the crowd to quieten down to get my towel. I just felt like it was a bit rough," added the Australian.