Nick Kyrgios has maintained he was calling himself “dirty scum” and not the umpire in his routine Wimbledon victory over Diego Schwartzman.
Colourful Australian Kyrgios dispatched Argentina’s Schwartzman 6-0, 6-2, 7-6 to progress to the second round, but he risked a fine for his on-court outburst.
Kyrgios denied directing his outburst at umpire Mohamed Lahyani, after threatening to stop play when contesting a call in the third set.
“Wouldn’t bother me one bit,” Kyrgios said when asked if he feared receiving a fine for his behaviour. “I wasn’t referring to the ref at all there, it was towards myself. But, yeah, obviously I knew you guys were going to ask me about that.”
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When quizzed on why he called himself “dirty scum”, Kyrgios said: “Why are you so caught up about the question? Because I can.”
Kyrgios burst on to the tennis world’s major consciousness by dumping Rafael Nadal out of the fourth round at Wimbledon last year, and he has improved rapidly since.
The world No 29 attempted to explain away the on-court delay by claiming questionable calls “shouldn’t be something that can be taken lightly”.
“I just wanted to get the guy that was in charge of the referees,” he said.
“He was already sitting out there. I’m not too fussed about the call, to be honest, but if it was more a crucial time in the match, or deeper in the tournament, that could swing things.
“It shouldn’t be something that can be taken lightly. You’ve got to make the right call there.
“He knew it was a replay, the guy sitting off the court. He ultimately said, ‘it’s the ref’s call’. I really couldn’t do anything about it.”
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