Djokovic Happy To Apologise To Ball Girl

Novak Djokovic has said he would apologise to a Wimbledon ball girl after an outburst during his match against Kevin Anderson.

After losing a 20-shot rally against the South African, Djokovic showed his frustration while requesting a towel in the afternoon heat.

The top seed turned towards the youngster and aggressively shouts "towel".

The startled girl then passed him a towel, which he discarded in her direction before resuming play. He was 3-2 down at the time.

But Djokovic went on to win the fourth-round match 6-7 (6-8) 6-7 (6-8) 6-1 6-4 7-5 on Tuesday.

When asked about the incident involving the ball girl, he said the outburst was not aimed at her.

"I'm sorry. There was nothing towards her. Maybe she was just afraid of my screaming there," he said.

"Sometimes it's just good to scream and let it all out, because that's the way I work.

"I was pretty close to her. I'm definitely going to try to apologise to her if I did something wrong."

The world number one was the latest player to be involved in controversy at Wimbledon this year.

Maria Sharapova was accused of unsportsmanlike behaviour by the opponent she beat in the quarter-finals.

Coco Vandeweghe complained to the chair umpire about Sharapova's movements during the American's second serve in the Centre Court clash.

"What I experienced, what I felt from her moving around in between my serving motion was not, I don't think, sportsmanlike, in my opinion," she explained in the news conference after her loss.

"I try to play as fair as I can.

"When I felt like it wasn't being reciprocated, that's when I spoke with the umpire for her to deal with," she added, saying the official disagreed and took no action.

Sharapova, for her part, rejected the accusations, saying did not hear any complaints and did not feel she had done anything different to usual.

"I mean, it is what it is. What she said, I'm not going to argue against her words," the Russian said.

Earlier in the tournament, Nick Kyrgios drew his share of criticism for his on-court antics.

During his fourth round loss to Richard Gasquet, the Australian was fined for an audible obscenity, had repeated exchanges with the umpire and was accused of "tanking", or giving up.

After losing the first set and being broken early in the second, the 20-year-old was booed after sulking his way through the third game - at times he appeared not even making a token attempt to return the Frenchman's serve.

During a heated news conference, Kyrgios denied "tanking" the game, saying: "Of course I tried" and "I did move".

"Do you want to try to return Richard Gasquet's serve?" he sarcastically told a reporter.

"I'll give you the racket and we'll see how many times you can return his serve."

Back home, Kyrgios was criticised for his attitude, with Australian swimming legend Dawn Fraser saying she found his behaviour "disgusting".

However, the Olympic great found herself in trouble when she said Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic - both the children of immigrants - should "go back to where their parents came from" if they were not prepared to change.

Fraser later apologised .

"I want to unreservedly apologise for any comments that I made this morning which may have caused offence to my fellow Australians including Nick and his family," she said.