Racket Row: Kyrgios Defends Alcaraz ‘for Showing he is human’

Nick Kyrgios has defended Carlos Alcaraz for an out of frustration racket throw at the Toronto Masters.

The Aussie argued that the Spaniard is going to be “carrying the tennis load for the next decade” and thinks it is good that he showed “he is human.”

Alcaraz lost to Tommy Paul, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the quarters of National Bank Open and it seems that the American has got Spaniard’s number as it was his second straight loss to the Paul at the Rogers Cup, having also eliminated by him in the last year edition of Canadian Open.

Struggling behind the serve, the 20-year old double-faulted to concede the opener and in frustration threw his racket while moving towards his bench.

Kyrgios on social media, responded to a post featuring Alcaraz throwing the racket and captioned, ‘No code violations for boy wonder’.

Here is the tweet of 28-year old, supporting the 20-year old:

“Who the f**k cares. The dude is gonna be carrying the tennis load for the next decade. Good on him for showing he is human. Frustrated [for] not playing up to standards. Also let’s start giving codes (code violations) to umpires.”

Alcaraz was appearing at his first ATP tour level event after dethroning Novak Djokovic in the final of Wimbledon. The World #1 has also represented Spain at the Hopman Cup after wrapping up the SW19 campaign.

The 2-time Slam Champion was asked whether competing at the mixed team exhibition event played on Clay, affected his hardcourt game.

“No, I don’t think so. I had a lot of days, you know, to prepare [for] this tournament on hard court. I practice well. So I don’t think Hopman Cup has something bad, you know, about this tournament,” said the Spaniard in his press conference.

The Canberra-native has recently announced his withdrawal from the New York where Murcia-native, Alcaraz is a defending Champion. Kyrgios will sit out of the tournament because of a wrist injury that also hampered his 2023 Wimbledon and overall grass campaign. The electric Aussie has missed all four Grand Slams of the 2023 as his competitive return just lived up to one game at Stuttgart in June where he lost to Chinese Wu Yibing in the R1 of ATP 250 event.