Nick Kyrgios reacts to ‘horrible call’ in Cincinnati Masters controversy
Nick Kyrgios has reacted to a controversial moment at the Cincinnati Masters, with Jack Draper and Felix Auger-Aliassime involved in a lengthy debate after match point.
Auger-Aliassime and Draper were playing at the last-16 stage in Cincinnati, with the latter leading and serving for the match in the third set.
Draper had got himself in a match point situation, where he attempted to serve and volley with the ball finding its way onto Auger-Aliassime’s side of the net.
However, at the time it was unclear as to whether it was a fair and legal shot that Draper had hit, with umpire Greg Allensworth declaring that the match was over, “Ladies and gentleman, I’m ruling that that was a fair shot. Game, set and match Draper.”
This resulted in both players conversing, conflicting over whether Draper had hit the ball down into the ground before it reached Auger-Aliassime’s side of the net.
“If there was a replay I would replay it, but I don’t know… I was looking at you,” claimed Draper.
This was met with a strong response by Auger-Aliassime, “Jack, you know. It doesn’t matter where you were looking, you’ve played enough to know when you hit it, you know where it went.”
Auger-Aliassime then projected his frustrations towards umpire, Allensworth, “That is horrendous what you just did. Did you not see the ball bounce on the floor? He [Draper] shanked it onto the floor! We’re going to leave here, this will be everywhere and it’s going to look ridiculous.:
The Canadian continued, “I’m going to ask you one more time, if you’re 100% sure that you’re not going to leave here and that you have no doubt, not one ounce of doubt in yourself that that was a clean volley winner, then I’ll shake his hand right now and the match will be over.”
Allensworth replied, “I have to call it how I see it Felix, this is how I am and this is how I saw it. If I had a doubt I would tell you, but we can go back and look at it after the match and if I see I’m wrong I’ll admit it to you, but for now I can’t go back and look at it.”
The total exchange lasted around four minutes, with Draper and Auger-Aliassime embracing in a hug despite the controversy.
This is not the first time that umpire Allensworth has been involved in controversy in recent weeks, having also defaulted Denis Shapovalov in Washington D.C., as well as overruling the technology in a match between Taylor Fritz and Brandon Nakashima earlier this week in Cincinnati.
Unsurprisingly, this incident has been met with a lot of reaction on social media including from Nick Kyrgios, who voiced his opinion and seemingly implied that Draper knew that the ball had hit the ground first, “Mate. Horrible call, but every player knows you know exactly where you hit it hahaha ridiculous stuff.”
Mate. Horrible call, but every player knows you know exactly where you hit it hahaha ridiculous stuff
— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) August 17, 2024
Regardless of the controversy, Draper will now move onto the Cincinnati Masters quarter-finals against Holger Rune later today.
Inside the baseline…
It has been a rough couple of weeks for Greg Allensworth, who made another mistake yesterday on the match point. Many people are criticising Allensworth and Jack Draper, but the one thing that would solve all of this is video replays. Thankfully this is something that will be available at the US Open, as it will hopefully massively reduce the likelihood of this happening and lessen the amount of criticism given to those involved.
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