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Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash feels fellow Australian Nick Kyrgios has been blameworthy of "cheating" and "gamesmanship" in his erratic third-round win over Stefanos Tsitsipas. Cash also believes that Kyrgios’ antics had tainted the sport's reputation. The 1987 Wimbledon champion, called Sunday’s match "absolute mayhem".
"He's brought tennis to the lowest level I can see as far as gamesmanship, cheating, manipulation, abuse, aggressive behaviour to umpires, to linesmen," he said.
"Something has got to be done about it. It's just an absolute circus. It's gone to the absolute limit now," he told BBC Radio.
Pat Cash further talked about how the chair umpire had no control over the proceedings of the game because of Kyrgios’‘gamesmanship’and ‘abuse’ which was equivalent to "cheating". He said: "Tsitsipas would make a line call and he'd go up there and start complaining, he'd be in his face - that's part of gamesmanship, that's the sort of stuff he does and I think there's a limit. Let's hope he doesn't drop tennis there to a lower level than he did on Saturday."
He bullies opponents: Tsitsipas
Even after the match, Tsitsipas labelled Kyrgios as a bully and also talked about the Australian having a very evil side to him. “I wish we could all come together and put a rule in place. I don’t know. Something about talking. Why would you be talking while you’re playing? It makes no sense,” he said. “Yeah, it’s constant bullying, that’s what he does. He bullies opponents. He was probably a bully at school himself. I don’t like bullies,” Tsitsipas said.
“I don’t like people that put other people down. He has some good traits in his character, as well. But he also has a very evil side to him, which if it’s exposed, it can really do a lot of harm and bad to the people around him.”
That’s his way of manipulating the opponent: Tsitsipas
The Greek then addresses how Kyrgios tends to manipulate the opponent and distract him. He said" “Every single point that I played today I feel like there was something going on on the other side of the net."
“That’s his way of manipulating the opponent and making you feel distracted, in a way. There is no other player that does this. I really hope all us players can come up with something and make this a cleaner version of our sport, have this kind of behaviour not accepted, not allowed, not tolerated,” he stated.