Nick Kyrgios fined as ATP starts cracking down on racket rage
Nick Kyrgios has been fined a total of $25,000 (£19,000) for when he threw his racket and it flew in the direction of an innocent ball boy at last week’s Indian Wells Masters.
Over the past few months, concerns have grown amongst both fans and players alike over the increasing amount of racket abuse incidents.
The first major incident this year came at the Mexican Open when World number three Alexander Zverev was defaulted from both the doubles and singles after he swung his racket at the Chair Umpire’s stand a total of four times.
As a result, Zverev was fined $40,000, docked of all prize money and rankings points earned and is now subject to a suspended eight-week ban that will be enforced if he commits a similar code violation in the next eight weeks.
At last week’s Indian Wells Masters, Nick Kyrgios was the next player to cause controversy.
During his semi-final defeat to 21-time Grand Slam legend Rafael Nadal, Krygios threw his racket into the ground and the racket took an unfortunate bounce in the direction of a ball boy’s head.
Whilst Kyrgios seemingly made amends for his actions by gifting the ball boy a racket, the ATP have fined him $20,000 (£15,000) for unsportsmanlike conduct and $5,000 (£3,700) for an audible obscenity.
Most recently, American youngster Jenson Brooksby launched his racket in a similar fashion to Kyrgios and another unfortunate bounce took the racket skidding towards a ball boy’s feet.
After these incidents, fronting the calls to impose harsh punishments when such offences are committed is none other than Spanish great Nadal and two-time American Open icon Tracy Austin.
Speaking on the incidents, Nadal said “the ATP should put a stop to this. Otherwise sooner or later something major will happen.”
Last year, Nadal also said “there are kids who would love to have a tennis racquet, so I will never break a racket.”
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