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'Enjoy Your Flight Home': Nick Kyrgios And Thanasi Kokkinakis Involved In Heated Locker Room Altercation

Home> Australia

Published 00:46 24 Jan 2022 GMT

'Enjoy Your Flight Home': Nick Kyrgios And Thanasi Kokkinakis Involved In Heated Locker Room Altercation

The Aussie doubles pair had just beaten top seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic when they were confronted by their rivals' trainer.

Max Sherry

Max Sherry

Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis were involved in a fiery locker room exchange with a rival trainer during the Australian Open.

The doubles pair had just beaten tournament top seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic when they were confronted by their opponents' coach after the match.

And while their was no audio attached to the CCTV footage, you could see that tensions had certainly reached boiling point.

Now that the dust has settled, the Aussie duo have shed some light on exactly how it all unfolded.

"Mate, it was pretty funny, I'm not going to lie," Kokkinakis told reporters.

"Me and Nick, trying to be professionals, so we went in the gym after our doubles match, maybe one of the first times ever.

"I'm going to be honest, it was Pavic's fitness trainer and he came up and he smashed a foam roller against a pole as hard as he can and I thought he was kind of joking, I wasn't sure if he was about to berate his players.

"And he came up to Nick and said we're being disrespectful and we... Nick hit the opponent with a ball, but that's normal, these doubles players got unbelievable hand so you have to go at them. And they said we were showboating, but I'm sure if we played away in Croatia it would have been the same thing.

"So it was just our energy and I think at the end of the day they were a bit salty they lost, because they've won their fair share of tournaments, so I don't know, I thought they would handle losing a little better than that.

"But at the end of the day we're just trying to entertain the crowd, we didn't mean anything disrespectful, we're trying to get ourselves and our energy up. It was all aggressive on his part though for sure."

Kyrgios then chimed in, perfectly adding: "Yeah, just enjoy your flight home."

Tennis Australia boss Craig Tiley has since confirmed that his team are "looking closely" into the incident.

"There was a lot of passion and a lot of energy in the stadium and I think that carried over beyond the stadium," Tiley told Nine's Today show.

"I have spoken to Nick and the team and this is not unusual, it's not uncommon. When players have a situation like this and players are beaten and they are expected to win the match and there's so much passion from the fans.

"Nick and Thanasi have moved on, they play again this afternoon and I think we'll see Kia Arena again filled with fans that are passionate about watching the Australians hopefully advance deeper into the second week."

Featured Image Credit: WWOS

Topics: Nick Kyrgios, Video, Australian Open, Thanasi Kokkinakis, watch, Australia

Max Sherry
Max Sherry

Max Sherry is a journalist for SPORTbible Australia. After migrating Down Under from London as a teenager, he instantly fell in love with Aussie sport and its culture. From NRL to AFL, cricket to rugby — you name it, Max watches it (with a beer in hand, of course). During his time at Fox Sports, he worked in the football department covering the Premier League, A-League, Socceroos and Matildas. Born a stone's throw away from West Ham's training ground, Max is obviously a die-hard Liverpool fan.

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@maxysherry

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