There’s no shortage of gossip in Australian tennis… Nick Kyrgios called his compatriot Bernard Tomic ‘Australia’s most hated athlete’ as discord between the two players flared up again on Thursday.
Both absent from the Roland-Garros tournament which started on Sunday, the two former friends, who have been cold for several years, regularly rail against each other through the media. Their feud reignited on Wednesday night, with Tomic, 29, claiming he was his caddie’s “idol” when they played in the youth division. “He was always in my shadow when we started,” said the man, who is now No. 418 in the world and has only been playing challengers for more than a year. “That’s why every time someone says my name to him, he can’t take it,” Tomic added. The latter finally believes that Kyrgios “cannot rewrite history, nor my records when I was 16, 17, 18, 19 years old”.
The outing follows a mocking first outing from Kyrgios, 27 and world number 76, who asked Tomic to “calm down”, arguing that he had amassed “more money, more wins”. The former world No.13 then added on Instagram: “Hahahaha rewrite history, you are Australia’s most hated athlete, no one can take that away from you”. If Kyrgios has always had a whimsical behavior on the court, Tomic, who has tried his hand at reality TV, has notably hit the headlines outside with numerous altercations as well as because of the behavior of his father John.
Despite good results in the past, the two players are generally seen as eternal hopes missed out on their potential, now struggling to retain the motivation to exist on the ATP Tour.
