By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday October 24, 2019
Get your popcorn popping...
A feud is developing rapidly between Australia’s Nick Kyrgios and Norway’s Casper Ruud, based on comments the Norwegian made about his match in Rome with Kyrgios in May.
For those that don’t remember, Kyrgios was disqualified from his match against Ruud at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia after being handed a game penalty in the third set. The Aussie, never one to shy away from on-court histrionics, threw a chair into the middle of the court and walked off as the official disqualification was announced.
When Ruud realized that he had won by default he celebrated the victory gleefully, no doubt pleased to see Kyrgios reprimanded for his antics, which had gone on for much of the contest. Kyrgios later took to Twitter and posted the following reply to a posted video of Ruud’s celebration.
This summer, in an interview with Alex Theodoris of Tennis Portalen, Ruud voiced his opinion of the incident.
“I saw that [Kyrgios] wrote a little about it,” Ruud said. “Okay, he got disqualified but if we look at the H2H between me and Kyrgios it’s 1-0 to me. That means I’ve won against him? He can say as much as he wants about me getting disqualified but it still says 1-0 to me. I don’t know, he was totally crazy when I played him. It was nice to win.”
Ruud pulled no punches as he continued: “If I celebrated after the match or not? I don’t care,” he said. “I was happy I got 90 points and 50 000 dollar in prize money so why wouldn’t I celebrate? It’s his problem that he’s an idiot on court.”
Kyrgios quickly took to Twitter to reply.
“Next time you have something to say, I would appreciate you say it to my face, I’m sure you wouldn’t run your mouth so much after that,” Kyrgios wrote on Twitter, tagging Ruud’s account in his tweet. “Until then I will continue to rather watch paint dry then watch you play tennis.”
The Aussie continued the attack with a second tweet: “I also understand why you have to keep my name in your mouth, because people don’t even realise that you play tennis,” he wrote.
Naturally fans are already excited about a rematch between these two talented players.
Ruud is currently at 61 in the world and has qualified for the ATP’s Next Gen Finals in Milan. He has won 22 matches in 2019. His father Christian is the highest-ranked player to ever play from Norway, with a ranking that topped out at 39 in the world.
Kyrgios is currently ranked 30 in the world and went 21-15 on the season with titles in Acapulco and Washington, D.C.
The Aussie has been in hot water quite a bit in 2019. He was fined $113,000 for misdeeds during his second-round match with Karen Khachanov at the Cincinnati Masters. After an investigation the ATP later added additional punishments, placing Kyrgios on a six-month probation period and imposing a deferred 16-week suspension and $25,000 fine if the Aussie did not maintain good behavior in the six months.
Kyrgios also made disparaging remarks about the ATP at the US Open but later clarified his remarks and was not disciplined for these actions.
The Aussie will next appear at the Davis Cup finals in Madrid from November 18 to 24.