Wimbledon: Nick Kyrgios fined and slammed by Pat Cash, as Hong Kong’s Coleman Wong progresses in doubles
- Wong and partner Michael Zheng oust the third seeds as they make winning start in the boys’ doubles
- Cash blasts ‘cheating, gamesmanship’ by Kyrgios, who he says has ‘brought tennis to the lowest level I can see’
Two-time junior grand-slam title winner Wong and his playing partner Michael Zheng of the United States dumped out the third seeds as they began their boys’ doubles campaign in comfortable fashion.
They raced into a 4-1 lead in the first set against American Nishesh Basavareddy and Mexico’s Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez, and did not look back, taking it 6-3.
An early break in the second set saw them close it out 6-2 to progress to a meeting with either Britain’s Henry Searle and Luca Pow, or Thailand’s Tanapatt Nirundorn and Jaden Weekes of Canada.
Who is 17-year-old Hong Kong tennis prodigy Coleman Wong?
Due on Centre Court later on Monday was Kyrgios, whose behaviour during his ill-tempered third-round win over Stefanos Tsitsipas was heavily criticised by fellow Australian and 1987 Wimbledon winner Cash.
Fined US$10,000 after his first-round match for spitting towards a fan, Kyrgios was warned for swearing on Saturday and then called for Tsitsipas to be defaulted after the Greek hit a ball close to a spectator’s head after losing the second set.
Tsitsipas later labelled Kyrgios a “bully” with “an evil side”, while the Australian said he did nothing disrespectful.
Kyrgios also questioned Tsitsipas’s remarks about bullying, saying the Greek “was the one hitting balls at me, he was the one that hit a spectator, he was the one that smacked it out of the stadium”.
Cash told BBC Radio on Sunday that the match was “absolute mayhem”.
“He’s brought tennis to the lowest level I can see as far as gamesmanship, cheating, manipulation, abuse, aggressive behaviour to umpires, to linesmen,” Cash said. “Something has got to be done about it. It’s just an absolute circus. It’s gone to the absolute limit now.”
Cash added that the chair umpire had “lost control” of the proceedings but “the gamesmanship, the abuse” Kyrgios was displaying was tantamount to “cheating”.
“He’d go up there and start complaining, he’d be in his face – that’s part of gamesmanship, that’s the sort of stuff he does and I think there’s a limit.”
A US$4,000 fine for Saturday’s abuse was added to Kyrgios’s tally while organisers also fined Tsitsipas US$10,000 for slamming the tennis ball in anger.
Kyrgios was set to take on unseeded American Brandon Nakashima, bidding to reach his first grand slam singles quarter-final since 2015.
