Nick Kyrgios has managed to put himself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons – again.
We should be talking about how well he played against world number five Stanislas Wawrinka in the Rogers Cup. The fact that he led 4-0 in the third set before Wawrinka retired hurt.
Even discussing the fact that he has brought Lleyton Hewitt on as an advisor – and not a coach as he has been quick to point out (although someone should let Wikipedia know) – in an extremely smart move.
Instead it’s all about the sledge he delivered midway through the second set.
But why are we in uproar? Was the sledge in bad taste? Yes. Was it unnecessary? Yes. Was it incredibly stupid? Yes. Did it cross the line? Yes.
But was it really that bad? He could have come up with something far worse. Kyrgios could have been racist, in which case we would have every right to be outraged. On the scale of offensive sledges, this is not exactly a hanging offence.
Every time I think about why we are outraged, I come down to just one answer: because it’s Nick Kyrgios. Think about it this way, if Aaron Woods revealed that he said something similar when he was sledging Dave Shillington last Monday night we would have been laughing, praising Woods for coming up with a sledge that triggered a Shillington brain explosion.
Instead it was Nick Kyrgios, and we are outraged.
Much of the outrage is media driven, but even more of it is Twitter driven. People who like to have their say in 140 characters or less and think they are experts. Unfortunately we have seen the media start to treat these people more and more seriously, not just in sport but in all facets of life, and it’s a worrying trend.
According to the media, a few people on Twitter are representative of society as a whole and embedding a few tweets into an article acts as evidence of the public thinking a certain way.
If a journalist doesn’t agree with Kyrgios’ behaviour they jump on Twitter, find a few critical tweets, and voila! We have an article full of ‘evidence’. However there’s no balance, just one-sided outrage.
Unfortunately for Kyrgios this is another in a long line of brain snaps, and when you them together it’s not hard to see why the public is turning against him. But in saying that, it’s also hard to avoid the thought that each indiscretion is blown out of proportion because of who he is.
Each indiscretion is criticised not on its own merit, but on the back of a long line of moments of madness. It’s a snowballing effect and it’s obvious that Kyrgios needs to stop it, but it’s also obvious that he’s struggling to stop it.
Let’s take the ‘tanking’ controversy from Wimbledon. He didn’t try for one game, and watching it live I thought it was incredibly stupid. But I also knew that no matter the result of his match against Richard Gasquet, the tanking would be the central news story, even if it was just one game.
In our rush to judge Kyrgios for choosing not to try for what amounted to be four points, we ignored the fact that tennis players often don’t try for points or games for a variety of reasons.
Nick’s reasoning was not justifiable – he was angry with the umpire and he needs to be able to put the umpire’s decision behind him, something he has struggled to do in the past.
But while some would argue that not trying is never justifiable, Nick was actually told not to try during the 2014 Australian Open.
Let’s flash back to January 15, 2014. It’s around ten o’clock before Kyrgios finally takes to Margaret Court Arena for his second ever match at the Australian Open, a second-round match against France’s Benoit Paire. Kyrgios takes the first two sets seven games to six before dropping the third.
At this point that he starts to suffer from severe cramps. It’s about 1am, and the crowd is heavily supporting their home player. After dropping the first two games of the fourth set, Jim Courier, commentating for Channel Seven, tells the viewers that he needs to throw the fourth set and prepare for a fifth and deciding set. Courier’s thinking is that Kyrgios should use the next 20 or so minutes to recover from cramps and ensure he is able to actually play some tennis in the fifth set.
For the record, Kyrgios didn’t give up in that set, although it was clear he was trying to serve as many aces as possible and ensure he minimised his running. But the point is that there was no outrage directed towards Kyrgios or Courier, nobody came out and said an athlete should never tank.
Maybe it was because nobody was awake to hear Courier’s comments. Or maybe it was because Kyrgios hadn’t yet established a reputation as a ‘bad boy’. But I can guarantee that if Kyrgios finds himself in the same situation at the upcoming US Open and chooses not to try in the fourth set to recover and recuperate he will be absolutely crucified by the Twitterati.
Kyrgios is 20, he has time to learn, but he needs to stop giving people reasons to dislike him and chances to criticise him. While some of the criticism is unjustified and much of it is coming from people who have never experienced the high-pressure situations he finds himself in, it’s on him to being an obvious target.
Maybe, just maybe, if Nick has a year free of controversy, when the brain snap finally comes we won’t be so quick to jump on him. We can only hope, because there are only so many times you can defend someone, and Nick is running out of chances.
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