Paul Lewis: Nick Kyrgios is right, tennis has a real issue

Nick Kyrgios partnered with Novak Djokovic against Michael Venus and Nikola Mektic at the 2025 Brisbane International. Photo / Getty Images

THREE KEY FACTS

• Michael Venus and Nikola Metic defeated Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios at the ATP tournament in Brisbane.
• Venus’ win was seen as payback for a controversial 2022 Australian Open match against Kyrgios.
• Kyrgios criticised doping charges against Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek, calling it a “horrible look” for tennis.

No one mentioned it but I bet New Zealand’s world-ranked doubles specialist, Michael Venus, smiled with cold satisfaction when he and partner Nikola Metic ousted the star pairing of Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios at this week’s ATP tennis tournament in Brisbane.

Beating one of the greats in Djokovic is one thing but having revenge on Kyrgios is quite another – payback for a disgraceful showing in 2022 when Kyrgios and his Aussie mate Thanasi Kokkinakis played Venus and then partner, Tim Puetz, in the Australian Open doubles (which the Australians went on to win).

Kyrgios has always been, at best, a showman and, at worst, a vulgar brat but he and Kokkinakis exceeded even previous boundaries that day as they whipped an Australian crowd into a frenzy, deliberately provoking the worst kind of Aussie nationalism. Venus said after losing in three sets that the crowd were sledging him constantly and making remarks about him and his family when he was trying to serve.

They cheered any mistakes by Venus and Puetz, loudest when either served into the net, happy to inspire failure rather than a contest. Venus had trouble with his ball toss, so the crowd hooked into hooting at him as he threw the ball up, coming to a crescendo just before he hit the ball. Krygios also mocked the Kiwi’s serve.

Afterwards, Venus said of Kyrgios: “… at the end of the day, he’s just an absolute knob. On the maturity side, you see why he’s never fulfilled his potential and probably never will. His maturity level, it’s probably being generous to a 10-year-old, to say it’s at about that level. Between serves [they were] geeing the crowd up and getting them to cheer at times like that [serving]. I don’t think that’s really on. You know if it’s on the other foot, old mate [Kyrgios] would have flipped his lid.”

That was borne out a few weeks later when Kyrgios departed from the 2022 Indian Wells tournament at the hands of Rafael Nadal when, irony of ironies, Kyrgios complained to the umpire of the very thing he had stirred in Melbourne. When the crowd baited him, he railed at the umpire using foul language, threw his racket, argued with courtside fans, had temper tantrums. “It’s your job to control that,” he yelled at the umpire about the crowd noise. “It’s bullshit, man, the crowd can’t scream things out.” The worm had well and truly turned.

So it must have been hugely satisfying for Venus to end a thrilling 31-shot rally with a forehand early in the match against Kyrgios and Djokovic – a rally already described as a contender for point of the year. The match ended, ironically, when Kyrgios netted a Venus serve.

However, while Kyrgios has often come across like a trying-too-hard Colombian drug dealer with the haircut, the cussing, the earrings, the bling and the attitude, I have to say I agree with him about tennis possessing a bad look at present.

Kyrgios said in his Brisbane press conference that doping charges against leading players Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek are “disgusting for our sport”.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) recently levelled charges against world No 1 Sinner and former world No 1 Swiatek, the latter serving out a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine. Sinner tested positive twice for an anabolic steroid in March but avoided a ban because the ITIA determined he was not to blame.

“Two world No 1s both getting done for doping is disgusting for our sport. It’s a horrible look,” Kyrgios said. “Tennis integrity right now, and everyone knows it but no one wants to speak about it, it’s awful.”

Sinner successfully argued his physiotherapist had accidentally contaminated him during treatment with clostebol which had transferred from a cut on his own hand. He later fired his fitness coach and physiotherapist.

Kyrgios said: “I [pay] my team hundreds and thousands of dollars to be the professionals they are, to make sure that doesn’t happen. So they knew it happened. Why did they wait five to six months to do anything about it? He kept his team for five months … that doesn’t make sense.”

Djokovic also weighed in: “We’ve had plenty of players in the past and currently under suspension for not even testing positive to banned substances. Some players with lower rankings waiting for their case to be resolved for over a year. I’ve been really frustrated ... to see we’ve been kept in the dark for at least five months [on the Sinner case].

“Why have they [the ATP] kept that case away from the public? We see Simona Halep’s case on the WTA Tour, now Iga Swiatek’s case,” Djokovic said. “It’s not a good image for our sport. I’m just questioning the way the system works and why certain players aren’t treated the same as others. Maybe some ranking reasons are behind it, or some players have more financial backing and stronger legal teams to tackle these cases.”

Djokovic and Kyrgios used to be enemies before patching things up, joining forces on the doubles court. Seems like the ATP needs to patch up its system for dealing with doping charges and form a doubles pairing of transparency and immediacy.