US Open 2021: Nick Kyrgios a miserable first-round loser with first-world problems

Nick Kyrgios was true to form at the US Open. He lost early in a blaze of ridiculous excuses.

Nick Kyrgios returns the ball during his loss to Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain in the first round of the US Open 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.

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

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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.

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 spectator-less, 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.

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.

“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 shit. 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.

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.