Former world number 7 Marion Bartoli admits that at some point you ‘get tired’ of Nick Kyrgios’ “provocative statements”, with his comments coming after his latest attack on Jannik Sinner.
Kyrgios has launched several public attacks on Sinner since it was announced that the world number 1 had failed two doping tests. The Italian tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid Clostebol in March and was provisionally suspended, but successfully appealed and was allowed to return to action immediately.
The matter only came to light in August, when the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced that Sinner had been cleared of any wrongdoing as he had ‘no fault or negligence’ since the substance had entered his system via a massage from his former physiotherapist.
The 23-year-old also escaped disqualification, but Kyrgios was not impressed with the decision, as he posted on social media: ‘Ridiculous, whether it was accidental or planned. You undergo two tests with a banned substance (steroid)… you should be away for 2 years. Your performance is improved. Massage cream… Yeah, man’.
The Australian recently upped the ante when he told the Nothing Major podcast that he hopes to play against Sinner at the Australian Open.
‘Let’s be honest, I really want to get on the court and I really want to play against Sinner,’ he said. ‘If I played against him at the Australian Open, I’d make every person in the audience lash out at him. I would turn into a full-blown riot. All respect would go out the window and I would do anything to win.’ The 29-year-old has been attacked by various members of the tennis community and 2013 Wimbledon winner Bartoli is the latest to voice her opinion.
‘I’m not surprised, because Kyrgios only lives and breathes provocative statements,’ she told “Les Grandes Gueules du Sport” on RMC Sports. ‘I would like to remind you that this is a player who was able to say absolute horrors to Stan Wawrinka, who is one of the most polite, most loved and most respected players on a tennis court, at a Masters 1000 in the middle of a match.
‘We don’t even know what’s going on in his head, I won’t even tell you what he said, those who follow tennis know that. Now, with all his provocative statements, after a while, you just get tired of it. Enough!
‘In any case, Sinner will not respond. And if he plays on the court, even though it’s still tennis, on the one hand we have a player who is world number 1, has just won two Slams and has become virtually unbeatable, and on the other hand a Nick Kyrgios who has not played in official competitions since 13 June 2023.’
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