“Are you always such an angry young man?” This was a question posed by the media to Nick Kyrgios earlier in the week for the Manila leg of the International Premiere Tennis League (IPTL) at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
It was a fair question considering the 20-year old Australian, who’s fast becoming one of the rising stars of the men’s tour, has had his fair share of controversy in his short career.
Earlier in the 2015, he was accused of tanking and was booed at Wimbledon for “not putting enough effort” in his loss against the now-Philippine Maverick Richard Gasquet. And even more troublesome was the controversy he generated later at the Rogers Cup, where, on-court, he was clearly heard saying to match opponent Stanislas Wawrinka: “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend. Sorry to tell you that, mate.”
Kyrgios was subsequently fined $10,000 by the ATP and had to apologize to Wawrinka.
While Kyrgios has had his worst moments of the year — the word “unsportsmanlike” comes to mind, among others — on Tuesday night, December 8, he showed exactly why he was the only remaining Singapore Slammer retained from season 1.
Apart from playing a high-energy brand of tennis, the big-serving Kyrgios played 3 sets for the Singapore Slammers in a bid to win over the UAE Royals. He played in mixed doubles, men’s doubles, and men’s singles in a narrow loss, 26-23 in aggregate.
The Slammers won only one set of the five, with the combined pairing of Kyrgios and Marcelo Melo winning 6-2 against Royals’ Tomas Berdych and Daniel Nestor.
For the rest of the Royals, the efforts of Ana Ivanovic over Karolina Pliskova (6-5), Goran Ivanisevic over Carlos Moya (6-4), and the combined efforts of Kristina Mladenovic, Daniel Nestor, and Tomas Berdych were enough to ensure a UAE victory in day 3 of IPTL Manila.
“It was a great match, we’re happy to have won,” said Berdych on his team’s match against the Slammers.
