US Open great urges ATP to 'step up' after Brooksby & Kyrgios incidents

Nick Kyrgios Jenson Brooksby ATP Indian Wells 2022

March 25, 2022

ATP Tennis Players, Nick Kyrgios, Tennis News, Tennis Tournaments

US Open great urges ATP to ‘step up’ after Jenson Brooksby and Nick Kyrgios racket incidents

Two-time US Open champion Tracy Austin has taken to social media pressing the ATP to step up its sanctions in response to recent racket-throwing incidents involving Nick Kyrgios and now Jenson Brooksby.

World number 39 Brooksby was in a heated battle with Federico Coria of Argentina when he lost his temper and threw his racket to the court, which bounced towards a ball person.

After the match, which the American won, he apologised personally to the ball person, to the public on live TV and on Instagram.

This is a better view of the Brooksby incident. 2 scenarios for a default (per a Supervisor)
1) The contact, even if unintentional, creates a serious injury.
2) If the act is intentional. So let’s say a player tried hit a ball at the umpire, but missed, that’s a default. pic.twitter.com/ECepplpkqq
— Rob Koenig (@RobKoenigTennis) March 25, 2022

Austin noted that Brooksby threw his racket twice, with the above incident being the second occurrence of the match.

She added: “Kyrgios IW (Indian Wells) also, ATP step up please.”

Here Austin refers to the moment after Kyrgios lost to Nadal in the quarter-finals when he threw his racket in anger and it bounced up and towards the head of a ball boy, who had to evade the racket.

Was calling the match-Brooksby threw his racket twice. After losing 1st set threw hard on ground in front of his chair, ricocheted to Coria’s side. 2nd time-Ballboys shouldn’t have to be leaping out of way of hurling rackets. Kyrgios IW also. @atp step up please
— Tracy Austin (@thetracyaustin) March 24, 2022

Some fans on social media have also drawn comparisons to when world number one Novak Djokovic was defaulted at the 2020 US Open for hitting a line judge with a ball.

As such, they called for Brooksby to have been disqualified from the match, something his opponent Coria also pleaded with the umpire on.