Nick Kyrgios slams ‘old head’ Pat Cash for ‘stupid comment’
Nick Kyrgios has hit back at Pat Cash’s claims that the “crowds in Australia are a bit out of control”, with the 2022 Wimbledon finalist branding it a “stupid comment”.
Kyrgios has played just one professional match in the last 14 months as he misses his domestic Grand Slam for the second straight year.
However, the 28-year-old will still be part of the Australian Open as he has been hired for both the Eurosport and ESPN commentary teams.
Welcome Nico Kyrgios! 👋
Tennis star to join Eurosport’s world-class commentary team at Australian Open 2024 🇦🇺🎙@NickKyrgios | @discoveryplusUK | #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/M57SrQnzcU
— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 8, 2024
Ahead of the first major of 2024, fellow countryman and 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash suggested Australian crowds “need to be more respectful”.
“I think the Australian crowds over the last 10 years have gotten a bit out of hand,” Cash told ABC TV. “Greet your countrymen, no problem, but they don’t represent your country, they are individual and I think we have to understand that.
“We should have more respect for the international players who come here. We also have to accept that if it goes too far, there’s a chance these players will say, ‘I’m not coming to Australia anymore. I go there and they abuse me, what’s the point?’
And now Kyrgios has hit back at those claims, telling Daily Mail Australia, “Absolutely stupid comment from another old boss who has no idea how marketing or how things work in this day and age.”
He continued, “You need entertainment. This generation doesn’t have a long attention span. That’s why you see Instagram clips going around. They last 15-20 seconds.
“Someone like Pat Cash couldn’t understand that concept. And I’m not taking anything away from Pat Cash. An incredible player of his generation, but we must continue to make the sport grow for fans everywhere.”
The last time Kyrgios played at the Australian Open was in 2022, when he won the doubles title alongside Thanasis Kokkinakis.
That same year, Ash Barty became the first Australian woman to win the singles title in 44 years, in what was to be her last match before announcing her retirement.
Barty defeating Danielle Collins attracted a peak audience of 4.2 million, compared to Kyrgios and Kokkinakis’ last peak of 3.15 million.
Kyrgios suggested adding those viewers because of his “entertainment value,” calling Cash old-fashioned and “stuck in his ways,” “We need the crowds to feel part of the sport. We need entertainment. We need people to have beers and players to love it. We need human interaction. We are humans, not robots. We need it to be that way.
“That year was incredible. Ash Barty was playing some of the best tennis of her career. He won the Grand Slam. Me and Thanasis won the Grand Slam. And it was the biggest viewership. This is no accident. It was Ash who put on a hell of a performance with her quality of tennis and Thanasis and I did it in a different way.”
The former No.13 added, “With everything I do on and off the field, the entertainment value, that’s what I look at. It just makes everyone else in the sport more money. That’s all it does. And if Pat Cash can’t see that – stubborn, old, stuck in his ways.”
Inside the baseline…
Nick Kyrgios never holds back his opinions as a player, and now he’s been given a platform to voice what’s likely to be the loudest. It’s undoubtedly true that Kyrgios attracts a different kind of audience to tennis, many of them less interested in the sport itself. That said, he probably should have a little more respect for his predecessors, as some of his comments about Pat Cash and Boris Becker are just plain disrespectful.
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