Cameron Norrie defends Nick Kyrgios over late withdrawal from French Open

Kevin Mitchell at Roland Garros

24 May 2019 at 2:08 pm

Nick Kyrgios, who pulled out of the French Open on Friday through illness, three days before his match against Cam Norrie and a few days after saying the tournament “absolutely sucks”, has not improved his popularity in certain parts of the game through deed or word lately.

Norrie, however, is not about to join the lynch mob perennially on the prowl for the Australian’s hide.

From chair-throwing and storming off court in Rome last week, to ripping mercilessly into Novak Djokovic for his peace-and-love victory celebrations, Kyrgios is ticking like a time bomb. However Norrie, who was one win away from playing him in the final in Acapulco this year, is relaxed about it.

“He likes acting like that and he’s allowed to act like that if he wants to,” the British No 2 and world No 41 said. “For me, I think it’s pretty entertaining for fans.” Nor was he bothered about Kyrgios’s late withdrawal.

“I think it’s probably smart from him just to get ready for the grass,” Norrie said, adding that he did not agree with the call for a six-month ban by Casper Ruud, who won his match against Kyrgios by default in Rome.

Norrie, who now plays the French qualifier and world No 273, Elliot Benchetrit, said: “I don’t agree with that at all. I think that was pretty harsh of him to kind of celebrate how he did after getting a default when Nick could have easily turned up on the day and chopped him probably in straight sets. That was a bonus for him.

“I think [Kyrgios] is great. There’s endless things on Twitter about the way he’s acting and stuff. I’m not saying it’s correct but I like that he’s his own person and does whatever he wants. He’s not trying to follow someone else.”

Backtracking slightly, he added: “I don’t know if I agree with the way he’s going about it. I don’t know ... I think he does attract a lot of fans and he is good for tennis in a way.”

Norrie, Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans are the only British players in the men’s draw – all in the same half.

Evans, not a fan of clay, has a serious challenge in the 23rd seed, Fernando Verdasco – despite Kyrgios’s view that the Spaniard has “an average backhand” – and pointed out: “Everyone knows he’s got a big forehand.”

The straight-talking Evans, who has risen more than a thousand ranking places to 77 in the world since his comeback from a drugs ban, had an update on the recovering Andy Murray too, after practising with him at Wimbledon. “I hit with him twice. He’s obviously hitting the ball great. I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that he wasn’t moving that day: I’m not sure if that was because he couldn’t or didn’t want to.

“He seemed pretty happy, if I’m honest, a bit happier than normal, which is a bit strange considering he’s injured – or not injured. I don’t know. We played golf as well. He was good, and he seemed pretty happy in himself. Hopefully he can come back and get going again.”

Evans said he also learned a lot spending time with Roger Federer recently, on and off the court. He was surprised, he said, how simple the owner of 20 majors kept his training and practice routine, and said British tennis spends too much time and money on deep analysis.

“It was just so basic,” he said. “So let’s maybe get the basics right, walk before we can run would be good for me. In our country you can’t be a tennis player when you have no money or you’re from a bad area. It’s impossible unless your mum and dad remortgage their house. Why should people do that when there’s six analysis guys?”

For now, Edmund is leading the thinnest of red lines, and he arrives here having lost five matches in a row. He is determined to fix his tennis quietly rather than “panic”, as he pointed out before his first-round match against Jérémy Chardy. “My game is not firing on all cylinders,” Edmund admitted.

And he agreed with Evans that tennis is a sport that risks losing young players for the wrong reasons. “The bottom line is that it is an expensive sport. I needed help with funding. I started off having help from my parents, but there was no way that I could have done it all just with their funding. I would have had to stop.”