US Open 2021: Nick Kyrgios knocked out in first round; Andy Murray cheating accusations

Halimah Kyrgios was all class when voted off The Voice. But her brother got what he deserved, bombing out of the US Open with another expletive-laden meltdown. WATCH

Another Grand Slam, another Nick Kyrgios meltdown. Picture: Getty Images

A rough couple of days for the Kyrgios clan. Halimah was voted off The Voice. Nick was sent packing from the US Open in another whirlwind of lame and ridiculous excuses.

Sometimes Rita Ora and the sporting gods just sit in their red chairs and conspire against you, eh?

Halimah waved goodbye to her singing competition the night before Nick said farewell to his tennis tournament in a miserable 6-3, 6-4, 6-0 rout. What a shame New York City is off limits to Australians.

Watch Live Coverage of the 2021 US Open from Round 1 to the Finals with ESPN on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >

How grand it would have been to attend Kyrgios’s press conference in New York and ask this question.

What would you rather have – a million Instagram followers or one tennis major?

I think his answer would be revelatory. I think he would take the celebrity status over the US Open championship. Each to their own.

Another Grand Slam, another Nick Kyrgios meltdown. Picture: Getty Images

Flushing Meadows isn’t really Flushing Meadows until Mike Tyson takes his seat for day one.

The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center was spectatorless, Tyson-less and soulless last year but the masses flocked for a flurry of first-round matches on the same night as Broadway flung open its doors for the first time since the pandemic rendered everyone mute.

It was difficult to know where the most enthralling theatre would be – Manhattan’s musicals or Kyrgios versus Roberto Bautista Agut inside Louis Armstrong Stadium.

Kyrgios knew from the get-go he was in trouble. It was stinking hot. The Spaniard was fitter.

Kyrgios started ranting about the inconvenience of having to get his own towels. Unfair in the heat, he said. Too far to walk, he said.

He seemed to forget the tournament could only go ahead because of Covid protocols such as this one.

Kyrgios arguing with the umpire saying 'it's not his job to fetch his towel,' after throwing it in the linesman's direction. Just pick it up and be normal, Nick. Amazing what entitlement does to a person. #USOpen

— cody kaye (@Cody_KayeFOX) August 31, 2021

Kyrgios fighting two battles here.

One against Bautista Agut, the other against towel protocol.

"My job is to come out here and play for the people, not walk back and forth between towels."#USOpen

— Sam Phillips (@samphillips06) August 31, 2021

Bautista Agut survived the horrors of having to get his own towels in an unflinching victory.

Kyrgios told umpire Carlos Bernardes he shouldn’t have to get his own towels because “my job is to come out here and play for the people.” Bernardes and Bautista Agut gave him short shrift but Kyrgios continued on and referenced a controversially long bathroom break taken by Stefanos Tsitsipas in his marathon five-set victory over Andy Murray.

US Open: Nick Kyrgios is never far from the action, and it was still the first set of his first match at the US Open when he embarked on a tirade which covered everything from towel etiquette to a jab at Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Nick Kyrgios was bundled out of the first round at the US Open. Picture: Getty Images/AFP

“It’s not part of the game,” Kyrgios said at a change of ends.

“Is taking 20-minute bathroom breaks a part of the game, too? Everything’s part of the game. I need to take a sh*t. Part of the game. F***ing stupid, bro. you’ve got guys at the top of the game taking 20-minute toilet breaks. It’s f***ed. It’s f***ed up.”

He vented at his courtside entourage for wearing masks.

“I can’ hear a word you’re saying,” he yelled at them.

“You’re the only two in here wearing a mask. I’m f***ing looking at you and all I can see is a mask.

“I can’t understand what you’re saying. Use your brains, bro.”

Halimah Kyrgios was unlucky to be voted off The Voice. She did herself proud. Her brother got what he deserved. The crowd walked out on him before the end.

To blame his troubles on the perfectly reasonable Covid requirement of players handling their own towels was a nonsense. It’s been happening on tour for the last year.

The ball kids haven’t handed over towels since the pandemic struck. He complained about having to play so late – the clock struck midnight during the second set. But late-night matches are part and parcel of a US Open.

Halimah and Nick Kyrgios are both out of their respective big competitions.

Get used to it, or get out of town.

He complained about Bautista Agut taking a very reasonable three minutes to change a shirt. That was a lame complaint. The truth of the match was that Kyrgios wasn’t tough enough to grind through it.

When it was proving too tough, he again found something else to blame. He received violations for time wasting and ball abuse.

Acting tough was pointless against someone playing even tougher.

It brought to mind a Davis Cup loss he once pinned on being forced to play with an arm injury. Which was news to everyone else in the Australian squad.

The alleged injury had gone completely unmentioned by him in the build-up. It was a cop-out when he should have just accepted defeat.

He won’t do anything significant at a major until he adopts a different mentality. An attitude of no excuses.

Towel troubles? Deal with them. There was no doubt he was sweating like a pig on a hot August night in the concrete jungle. He would have been better served trying to solve the riddle of how to battle past Bautista Agut.

He put more effort into his fights with the umpire. A waste of time by a wasting talent. The towel situation was nothing more than a first world-problem for an emphatic first-round loser.

‘F*****g joke’: Tennis cheat storm over a toilet trip

A lengthy bathroom break has sparked an opening round cheat storm at the US Open.

At the start of the fifth set, British star Andy Murray was overheard yelling “he’s cheating” in reference to his opponent Stefano Tsitsipas who had just returned from an eight minute off-court break.

Murray also appeared disgruntled at Tsitsipas receiving on-court coaching.

“It’s never once taken me that long to go to the toilet,” Murray said to officials.

“You know as well as I do this is an absolute disgrace.

“What’s your opinion on this? You’re umpiring the match, what’s your opinion? Give me an opinion. Do you think this is good? Do you think this behaviour is good?

“You guys just do nothing. “Let’s talk about it after the match”, but now is when it matters.”

The Greek world No 3 immediately broke his opponent to take a 2-0 lead in the decider before progressing to the second round with a 2-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory after four hours and 50 minutes.

And Murray was still fuming as he packed his bags.

“It’s a f*****g joke, every f*****g week, f*****g under-12,” he said. “I lost respect for him.

“It’s not so much leaving the court. It’s the amount of time.

Andy Murray loses his cool.

“I spoke to my team before the match about it and said to expect that, prepare for it if things were not going his way.

“You cannot stop the way that affects you physically. When you’re playing a brutal match like that, stopping for seven, eight minutes, you do cool down. You can prepare for it mentally as much as you like, but it’s the fact that it does affect you physically when you take a break that long, well, multiple times during the match.

“Every single time it was before my serve as well. When he took the medical time-out (for his left leg), it was just after I had won the third set.”

Tsitsipas brushed off Murray’s remarks.

“If there’s something he has to tell me, we should speak the two of us to kind of understand what went wrong,” Tsitsipas said. “I don’t think I broke any rules. I played by the guidelines.

“As far as I’m playing by the rules and sticking to what the ATP says is fair, then the rest is fine. I have nothing against him. Absolutely nothing.”

Andy Murray holds serve for 4-5, sits down and says to the umpire, 'Can I have the trainer now?'

A beat.

'Nah, it's OK, I'm joking.'

— The Tennis Podcast (@TennisPodcast) August 30, 2021

RULE CHANGE ‘NEEDED’

Murray said the players council is talking about rule changes to “make it less easy for the rules to be exploited,” and Tsitsipas took his time-wasting too far.

“I think it’s nonsense,” Murray said. “And he knows it, as well. “It’s nonsense and they need to make a change because it’s not good for the sport, it’s not good for TV, it’s not good for fans. I don’t think it’s a good look for the players either.

“He knows. The other players know.

Andy Murray was furious with his opponent’s behaviour.

“You could argue that I shouldn’t let that affect me. But genuinely it is difficult.

“Overall I did well but I’m really disappointed after that.” Murray said he didn’t want his complaints to sound like “sour grapes” adding, “I would have said the same thing if I’d won, I promise.

“I’m sitting in here talking about bathroom breaks and medical time-outs and delays in matches. That’s rubbish. I don’t think that that’s right.”

NOT THE FIRST TIME

It’s not the first time Tsitsipas has been accused of cheating in recent weeks.

Alexander Zverev suggested he had been receiving on-court coaching via his phone during their clash in Cincinnati.

Tsitsipas took another extended court break during which Zverev approached the chair umpire and said: “He took his bag with his phone and everything in it.”

Stefanos Tsitsipas has been accused of cheating a number of times in recent weeks.

“Someone is escorting him already and maybe enter with him …” the umpire replied.

Not satisfied, Zverev added: “He’s in the bathroom, he’s not gonna escort him into the toilet.”

“So what can we do with this?,” the umpire asked.

Zverev replied: “This was the same thing in Paris, and is gonna be the same thing in every other tournament he plays.”

Coincidentally, the cameras then turned to coach Apostolos Tsitsipas who was sat in the crowd texting on his phone.

When Andy Murray's just made a joke at you pic.twitter.com/70sAPd5f5k

— The Tennis Podcast (@TennisPodcast) August 30, 2021

Tsitsipas lands a great return to break Murray at the start of the fifth.

'He's cheating,' Murray informs his team. Presumably still fuming about that lengthy bathroom break.

— The Tennis Podcast (@TennisPodcast) August 30, 2021

Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep, battling back from injury, advanced to the second round of the US Open on Monday as the hardcourts showdown began before full-capacity crowds.

The 29-year-old Romanian 12th seed defeated Italy’s Camila Giorgi 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) to book a second-round match against Slovakian lucky loser Kristina Kucova, who ousted American Ann Li 7-5, 6-1.

Halep, the 2018 French Open and 2019 Wimbledon champion, tore a left calf muscle at the Italian Open, missed the French Open and Wimbledon, then suffered a right thigh injury at Cincinnati, but made a solid New York start.

Halep fired six aces and won 83 per cent of her first serve points, hitting 14 winners against 16 unforced errors while taking advantage of 31 unforced errors by Giorgi.

Former chair umpire Gerald Armstrong speaks with Andy Murray.

PLISKOVA TO MISS COACH AT US OPEN AFTER VISA ERROR

Karolina Pliskova will miss her German coach during her quest for a maiden Grand Slam title at the US Open after he failed to get a US visa, her team said on Monday.

“Sascha Bajin sought to get the US visa for a long time, but he failed,” Pliskova’s manager and husband Michal Hrdlicka said on her website.

“During the Covid pandemic last year, Sascha stayed in the United States longer than he should have. He has a house in Florida and he didn’t want to travel too much.” “But because of this, he has not got the visa this year,” Hrdlicka added. The 29-year-old Pliskova, this year’s Wimbledon finalist, has hired Czech coach Leos Friedl, a former doubles specialist, as a stand-in since the Cincinnati Masters earlier this month.

World number four Pliskova is facing 130th-ranked Catherine McNally on Tuesday in the first round of the US Open, at which she reached the final in 2016.

Originally published as US Open 2021: Nick Kyrgios knocked out in first round; Andy Murray cheating accusations