Nick Kyrgios is sorry he’s not sorry.
During his first-round match against Paul Jubb at Wimbledon on Tuesday, Kyrgios spit in the direction of an alleged heckler. After the match — which he won in four sets — Kyrgios did not express remorse for his side of the incident.
“Today, as soon as I won the match, I turned to him … I’ve been dealing with hate and negativity for a long time, so I don’t feel like I owed that person anything,” Kyrgios said. “He literally came to the match to literally just, like, not even support anyone really,” he continued. “It was more just to stir up and disrespect. That’s fine. But if I give it back to you, then that’s just how it is.”
Kyrgios said he asked officials to remove the fan from the match. He continued to speak on the spitting incident, blaming social media for yielding spectator “negativity” while lamenting that he gets in trouble for any retaliation.
“I love this tournament; it’s got nothing to do with Wimbledon,” the 27-year-old Aussie said. “I just think it’s a whole generation of people on social media feeling like they have a right to comment on every single thing with negativity. It just carries on to real life.
“Because there’s a fence there — and I physically can’t do anything or say anything because I’ll get in trouble — they just feel the need that they’re just able to say anything they want.”
Elsewhere in his post-match press conference, Kyrgios called a lineswoman a “snitch” for reporting to the chair umpire something that he had said.
