For example, groping in the office is wrong. It should have been wrong in the 1980s. Do it after work in a bar and you’re in trouble too. Just ask Chris Pincher, a British Tory MP who has been suspended as a Conservative MP for allegedly groping two men in a private members club.
Telling an off-colour joke can be career limiting, too. Dave Weigel, a Washington Post reporter, was suspended without pay by his newspaper for retweeting a joke on Twitter which read: “Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.” Some were up in arms about the joke. Others were less concerned by a tweet that was deleted and for which Weigel apologised.
Drawing a line is not always easy. But surely, it’s time for tennis officialdom to draw a line on Nick Kyrgios. While the rest of us, including spectators at Wimbledon, are expected to live and work by a new set of rules that promote greater respect between people, the Australian tennis brat is allowed to behave like it’s 1989.
That was the year before John McEnroe was defaulted out of the Australian Open for shouting at a match official: “Just go f..k your mother.” Game, set and match to his opponent, Sweden’s Mikael Pernfors. McEnroe, the 1980s bad boy of tennis, may not have noticed the rule change posted in the players’ dressing room during the Australian Open. Prior to 1990, players were penalised in four stages – warning, point, game, match. The new rule reduced that to three stages.
Wimbledon is proving that rules for poor behaviour don’t matter a jot if there is poor enforcement. That said, if the existing rules that govern grand slams don’t allow umpires to kick Kyrgios out of Wimbledon, then new rules are needed.
Getting booted from a grand slam tournament should focus even the unruliest mind. That may not be the case with Kyrgios. At 27 he appears stupidly comfortable with his loutish behaviour. If he hasn’t notched up a greater number of fines for his poor behaviour than match wins at the elite level, it certainly feels that way for a reason. Kyrgios has become the clickbait of tennis, with many people tuning in for some of his tennis, but mostly for his antics on and off the court.
Sure, throwing a player out of a grand slam tournament is a big move. Organisers want full stadiums and to rake in millions of dollars from TV deals that draw in huge global audiences. But Kyrgios’s behaviour isn’t just bad for Wimbledon, or tennis more broadly. His behaviour is tantamount to telling young kids that it’s fine to behave like a bad sport. It’s fine to laugh and make fun of your opponent. It’s fine to call an umpire dumb. It’s fine to spit in the direction of spectators. It’s fine to talk and complain on court when things don’t go your way. It’s fine to not apologise for behaving like a bully and a boor. Just cop a fine and carry on.
That was the upshot of Kyrgios’s post-match press conference. Here was a textbook case of how to ignore your own behaviour and belittle others. When asked to respond to Stefanos Tsitsipas’s claim that he is a bully on court, the Australian laughed and smirked, turned questions on journalists, deflected like a class clown by suggesting that Tsitsipas should win a match before making the allegation. Kyrgios accused his opponent of being soft and not liked in the locker room.
The Australian’s Europe correspondent, Jacquelin Magnay, asked the pertinent question during the post-match press conference with Tsitsipas: If Wimbledon officials won’t clean up the court, will players take a stand against Kyrgios?
The 23-year old Greek player said it was frustrating to watch his opponent get away with constant talking, constant complaining on court, when players are there to play tennis. Not just once, but over and over again.
Both men were hit with code violations for unsportsmanlike conduct during their encounter. After the match, Tsitsipas apologised for hitting a ball into the stands in anger and frustration. He said he’d never done it before, and he would never do it again. He seemed genuinely contrite. By contrast, Kyrgios refused to apologise for any of his antics, not for abusing an umpire, or his constant loudmouthed rants on court. He seemed genuinely vulgar.
Kyrgios is not an Aussie larrikin who deserves some slack from a bunch of prudes. He sits on the wrong side of the line between being irreverent, quirky and cheeky on the one hand, and treating your opponent, umpires, and spectators with contempt on the other hand. If Kyrgios needs to behave like a crude and churlish brat to win a game, then he doesn’t deserve to play tennis at the elite level.
London newspapers reported at the weekend that the 27-year-old Australian holds the record for being the most fined player in tennis history. The bigger point is that when spitting at spectators attracts a measly $US10,000 fine, it’s time for elite tennis to join the 21st century by getting rid of players who disrespect the sport by disrespecting players, umpires and spectators.
It is hard to find a bigger gulf between talent and outcome than Kyrgios’s tennis career to date. Even if he wins Wimbledon, the even bigger gulf between talent and honour will define his career so far.
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When will Wimbledon catch up with the modern era? Workplaces and sporting codes have changed a lot since the 1980s. Poor behaviour that was overlooked then won’t be tolerated now. Some places have gone overboard, imposing a new form of humourless puritanism on people. But it’s hard to argue with the big stuff.