A distracting helicopter hovered overhead during the Australian Open clash between Nick Kyrgios and Viktor Troicki. Source: Channel 7
Aussies were among those behaving like absolute tools in Nick Kyrgios's second round match at the Australian Open — but the tennis star wasn't one of them.
It may come as a shock to know there were others outshining the 22-year-old in the dropkick department on Wednesday night, but it's true.
Kyrgios won his match against Viktor Troicki 7-5 6-4 7-6 (7-2) and yes, he swore a few times and exchanged words with the umpire. But in this instance, who can blame him?
In the second set a "fan" went rogue, running down the stairs with phone in hand and chanting after the umpire called for silence. Kyrgios refused to serve, staring at the idiot for 10-15 seconds before security escorted him out of the stadium.
Then a helicopter decided the airspace directly above Hisense Arena provided the best vantage point for the on-court action. It hovered, kept hovering, then hovered some more as the loud noise it created echoed around the stadium for several games, much to the annoyance of both players who couldn't hear the ball pinging off the racquet.
"Are you f***ing kidding?" Kyrgios said as he sat down at a change of ends.
If that wasn't bad enough, the match descended into a next-level farce because of fans' immature responses to technical issues, which included the PA system malfunctioning and failing to play music. The umpire's microphone was only working intermittently at the beginning of the third set, and some geniuses thought it would be comedic gold to cheer every time it did its job.
As the microphone worked following every let in the opening game of the set, sections of the crowd went bonkers. Who knew Hisense was populated by so many six-year-olds. You would have thought the match extended past their bedtime and they would have headed home by the time the final set rolled around.
A spectator interrupts Nick Kyrgios and Viktor Troicki's match at the Australian Open. Photo / Getty Images.
Kyrgios was livid, and he had every right to be.
"Maybe just stop saying the score cos they're just going to keep laughing," Kyrgios told the umpire when he went up 40-15, before shaking his head and taking aim at one member of the peanut gallery later in the same game.
"Well done, you're an idiot."
At the end of that opening game, Kyrgios implored the umpire to use common sense.
"What's going on? Fix it man. Are you gonna call someone to fix it? It's not normal," he said. "They keep laughing in between lets.
"How about you don't do it (announce the let call) next time so they don't do it (laugh) between lets so we can actually concentrate?"
Speaking after the match, Kyrgios said the crowd contributed to creating a "circus".
"It was tough. I told the umpire to maybe not use the microphone anymore because the crowd found it so amusing and then I was just like, 'Dude stop doing it, it's just going to create more of a circus,'" Kyrgios said.
"It was tough, it felt like I was playing a lower level tournament. I didn't hear the microphone, there was no music at the change of ends, it was just a strange atmosphere."
If you had the sound turned down on your TV at home you would have thought it was another classic case of Kyrgios blowing his top. It wasn't. This time, he was 100 per cent in the right.
Paying money to watch sport doesn't give you the right to act like a complete knob. Not when your behaviour is having a directly negative impact on the people you — and countless others — have paid to see entertain you.
This wasn't a case of a few bad apples ruining it for everyone. The noise was too loud, the cheers too widespread to just blame a handful of halfwits for the distractions.
Obviously, it wasn't as if the entire crowd was involved. But there were enough voices to ensure this match will go down as a shameful chapter of the 2018 Australian Open.
Save for the diehards, Kyrgios may not have too many fans left at this point in his career. But that doesn't give people the right to toy with his career.
If the perpetrators weren't Kyrgios fans, then their actions were unsavoury because they were making Troicki's life miserable too. If they were fans, then they would have known from the first set of the match Kyrgios wasn't interested in drawing his energy from a vocal crowd.
He was serene and largely emotionless to begin the match. The crowd roared every time he did something special, but the man himself didn't. He was ice cold.
"It's a quiet performance from an emotional standpoint," American great Jim Courier said in commentary for Channel Seven.
"They feel they need to get involved in the tennis match, but Nick's trying to offer something different," Roger Rasheed added.
Neither player deserved to have their grand slam campaign put in jeopardy by a bunch of immature tossers, and the umpire didn't deserve to be mocked for something that was out of his control.
To Kyrgios's credit, he applauded the crowd after he wrapped up the match and signed autographs for far longer than he needed to. It was a classy end to a classy performance.
