“I didn’t see Kyrgios…”. Angelo Binaghi, president of Fitp, takes care of placing the winning smash after Jannik Sinner’s triumph in the final of the 2024 US Open. The Italian, world number 1, wins the title in the New York Slam by beating the American Taylor Fritz in the final. Sinner receives compliments from everyone or almost everyone. Nick Kyrgios ‘seems’ to be missing from the roll call, who only after several hours – on an assist from Piers Morgan – ‘allows’ himself an acid tweet, in line with the conduct adopted in recent weeks.
Kyrgios’ ‘battle’ between accusations and insults
The Australian tennis player, out for months due to injury, recently stood out for his ‘anti-Sinner’ stance, peppered with unpleasant excesses, after the doping case involving the Italian. Sinner, as is known, was not disqualified for testing positive for clostebol, an anabolic steroid: the South Tyrolean demonstrated that the positivity was caused by contamination.
Kyrgios immediately asked for a 2-year ban for Sinner and, even during the US Open where he was deployed as a commentator by the ESPN broadcaster, he did not fail to underline the preferential treatment that would have been reserved for the Italian. In the repeated social exchanges, the Australian did not deny himself some unfortunate comments: a misogynistic tweet against Anna Kalinskaya, his former partner and current partner of Sinner, and a pre-final poll that was openly provocative with the name of the Italian next to emoticons associated with doping.
Now, with Sinner champion, what does Kyrgios do? On his X profile, a message of comfort for Fritz appears: “Head held high, champ. Two great weeks, you should be proud of yourself.”
And about Sinner? Nothing, for hours, before Piers Morgan – the face of British TV – urged him by posting an image of Sinner as champion and adding an assist message: “Sinner wins US Open after failing two doping tests (fixed for you).” Kyrgios responds with a yawn emoji and, bored, replies: “For the first time in history, we are witnessing greatness.”
Sinner’s (non) reply
“The reactions to my story? I don’t know, you have to ask other players. In general, when the news came out the general reaction of the players was positive”, says Sinner answering the last question in the press conference, without naming names and without referring to specific people. “There were some discordant voices, but this always happens and not only in tennis: it also happens in other sports and in other professional fields. There is nothing you can do about it”, says the Italian. “The people close to me know what happened, it is a situation that has had an impact on them too. I can only speak from my point of view and from the point of view of my team, we are all proud of this result”, he says.