Nick Kyrgios has issued a damning statement after tennis legend Novak Djokovic claimed that he was 'poisoned' on the eve of the Australian Open getting underway.
The Australian Open is the traditional season-opening major event each year, and is held in Melbourne, Victoria every January.
Djokovic will be looking to add to his record-setting 24 Grand Slam victories at the event, and has attracted even more media attention than usual in the build-up after appointing close friend and former on-court rival Andy Murray to be his coach.
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But the Serb has hit the headlines in a different way on Friday - after claiming he was 'poisoned'.
His allegations relate to the time period in which he was detained at an Australian airport after he arrived to play in the Australian Open in 2022.
Djokovic had not received a vaccination against COVID-19 when he arrived in the country, and he was later deported after nine days following the then-Australian government's decision to cancel his visa on public health grounds.
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The former world number one believed he had obtained the correct medical exemptions prior to making the trip, but he was then questioned by airport officials and then taken to an immigration detention hotel.
Despite a court overturning the decision to cancel his visa, the then-immigration minister decided to use 'special discretionary powers' to re-cancel it again, claiming it was 'in the public interest'.
Speaking in an interview with GQ, which was published in Australia in the early hours of Friday morning, Djokovic sensationally alleged his own conclusion that he was 'poisoned' by the food that he was served in the detention centre back in 2022.
He said: "I had some health issues. And I realised that in that hotel in Melbourne, I was fed with some food that poisoned me."
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When pressed further, he added: "Well, I had some discoveries when I came back to Serbia. I never told this to anybody publicly, but discoveries that I was, I had a really high level of heavy metal. Heavy metal. I had the lead, very high level of lead and mercury.
"That's the only way [that it was from the food].
"[I was feeling] very sick [going back to Europe]. It was like the flu, just a simple flu. But when it was days after that a simple flu took me down so much."
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Djokovic refused to answer more questions on the subject in his official Australian Open press conference, while a spokesperson from Australia's Department of Home Affairs - which now operates under new governance since a federal election in 2022 - told GQ: "For privacy reasons, the Department cannot comment on individual cases."
Food expert Damian Maganja has since claimed to The Guardian that Djokovic's 'poisoned' claim is 'possible, but very unlikely': "These meals were probably made in mass amounts and there haven't been other reports as far as I know."
Australian star Kyrgios, meanwhile, has since entered the discussion with a statement of his own.
He and Djokovic were previously fierce rivals and met at the 2022 Wimbledon men's singles final, but appear to have put that all to the side in recent years and recently appeared in a doubles tournament together.
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Speaking about the Serb's comments, Kyrgios explained to media in Melbourne: "No, I haven't spoken to him on it, I didn't know that.
"We treated him like s**t, that's for sure. We shouldn't have done that."
Kyrgios, 29, has played just three matches since the beginning of 2023 due to various injuries, but is in the main draw for the Australian Open in what will represent his first appearance at a Grand Slam since the US Open in September 2022.
He will take on British rising star Jacob Fearnley, who lost to Djokovic in round three at Wimbledon last year.
Topics: Nick Kyrgios, Novak Djokovic, Tennis
Ryan Smart