Mats Wilander says it would be interesting to see how would Jannik Sinner react if Nick Kyrgios indeed got a chance to face the Italian and managed to turn the entire Australian Open crowd against the world No. 1.
A few days ago, the Australian revealed on the Nothing Major podcast that he was hoping to play the defending champion in Melbourne so he could try to make it an absolute hell for the 23-year-old.
For the past couple of months, Kyrgios has been heavily calling out the Sinner doping case so his latest comments didn’t come as a surprise.
Nick Kyrgios© Australian Open/Instagram – Fair Use
Addressing that, former seven-time Grand Slam champion Wilander noted that he believes the Italian is “innocent” and that his explanation was valid. However, he also believes that the 2022 Wimbledon runner-up was serious when making those comments about a potential matchup at Melbourne Park.
Wilander: It’d be interesting to see what happens if Kyrgios gets on top of Sinner
“It would be interesting to see if Jannik Sinner could hold and keep his cool if he played someone like Nick Kyrgios on, let’s say, the old Vodafone, John Cain Arena. They let all the ground pass holders at the Australian Open come in, so the average age in the crowd goes from 60 years old down to 16 years old or maybe 20 and some of them are having a few beers too many. That atmosphere would be interesting to see if Jannik could keep his cool if Nick really gets on top of him,” the Swedish tennis legend told Eurosport.
During the 2022 Sunshine Double, Kyrgios and Sinner were scheduled to meet in Indian Wells but it didn’t happen after the Italian had to withdraw due to illness. However, they met around 10 days later and the current world No. 1 won their Miami meeting 7-6 (3) 6-3.
Tennis World USA