World No. 7 Casper Ruud has officially launched his podcast called the “Ruud Talk” and on the first episode he discussed the angry outbursts and recent players behavior.
In Indian Wells, Nick Kyrgios threw his racket that bounced and nearly hit a ball boy.
Kyrgios immediatelly went to check out on the ball boy and after the match reached out to the kid on social media.
In Miami, Brooksby threw his racket in frustration and it slightly hit a ball boy.
“I think it matters a little bit on how the boy ball reacts so it’s in the ball boy’s hands in a way, what the penalty should be. Because if the ball boy says he’s fine, which happened with Brooksby, because I guess the hit wasn’t very hard. It kind of just slid toward his leg,” Ruud said on the Ruud Talk, as quoted oin Sportskeeda.
Ruud: Kyrgios’ intention wasn’t to come close to hitting a ball boy
“I think those two cases, even though they looked very bad, were a bit unfortunate and, in a way, unlucky because I don’t think Nick intentionally hit his racket to the ground to try to bounce it up,” Ruud added.
There have been several cases of players losing their cool in recent months, most notably Alexander Zverev in Acapulco and Kyrgios in Indian Wells and Miami.
“I think it needs to stop. There has been two, three cases now within a month so it’s reckless behavior in a way. It’s not something I wish to see but at the same time it kind of brings attention to the sport just in a negative way,” Ruud explained.
In the Houston semifinal, Kyrgios was livid after the chair umpire missed out an evident Reilly Opelka out in the key moments of the match.
The chair umpire admitted to Kyrgios he missed out on a call but it was too late as the Australian suffered a straight-set defeat to Reilly Opelka.
“Most of the time, the umpires, they just do their best job anytime they can. Sometimes, you need to just accept that some human errors will be made because all the players, they do errors themselves. It’s the same as why should the umpire criticize you because you miss a forehand?” said Ruud.