Nick Kyrgios made a characteristically controversial exit at Queen’s Club on Thursday as the Australian blasted officials and accused a line judge of “match-rigging”.
The 24-year-old let rip after he had been given a code violation by umpire Fergus Murphy for querying a line call on a set point in his first-round match with Roberto Carballes Baena of Spain.
Kyrgios, who was disqualified from the Italian Open last month for throwing a chair across court amid a foul-mouthed rant, would not let the call lie and threatened to walk off the court.
“I’m not going to give 100 percent when I’ve got linesmen rigging the game; I don’t want to play,” said Kyrgios.
However, he did return to beat Carballes Baena 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 before losing a tight second-round match against Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (7/3), 7-5.
“I thought some of the calls were outrageous today. It shouldn’t have to come down to me and Felix giving each other points,” said Kyrgios after playing on an outside court without Hawk-Eye technology.
Kyrgios has been routinely fined for his behaviour on court.
His outburst at the Rome Masters which saw him default a second-round tie against Norway’s Casper Ruud cost him a 20,000 euro ($22,000) fine, along with his 34,000 euro prize money.
However, he accused the ATP of double standards with no punishment for officials who make bad calls.
“Why can’t they get fined for having a terrible day in the chair? Like, there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. It’s not a joke,” he added.
“They just think it’s a joke because nothing happens to them after the match. They don’t get any investigation or anything. I think it’s ridiculous.
“Why not have another umpire ready to come in if that guy’s have a terrible day? I don’t understand. I have to pay the fines for it.”
Tsitsipas struggles
Earlier, top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas came perilously close to joining a host of big names exiting at Queen’s on Thursday by coming from a set down to beat journeyman Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 4-6, 7-6 (7/0), 7-6 (7/4) and reach the quarter-finals.
The 20-year-old Greek came through two matches to reach the last eight having polished off his rain-delayed first-round clash with Kyle Edmund earlier in the day.
Resuming at 3-3 in the second set, Tsitsipas eventually sealed a 6-3, 7-5 win against the British number one on his seventh match point.
Tsitsipas struggled to overcome 32-year-old Chardy when he returned to the centre court for a near three-hour contest that will have drained the Greek’s resources for Friday’s quarter-final with Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Auger-Aliassime had earlier seen off Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-4.
Elsewhere, defending champion Marin Cilic, Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson and three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka were the big names to crash out.
Fifth-seeded Cilic – who also won the Queen’s title in 2012 and reached the final on two other occasions – went down 6-4, 6-4 to 26-year-old Argentinian Diego Schwartzman, who is appearing at Queen’s for the first time and recorded just his third win on the surface.
Anderson, the second seed, looked understandably rusty in his first tournament since March due to injury.
The veteran South African battled back from a set down to Gilles Simon, but the Frenchman prevailed 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.
And Wawrinka was shocked by 37-year-old French qualifier Nicolas Mahut, who came from a set down and a break down in the deciding set to win 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7/2).