{"id":30532,"date":"2021-02-04T02:16:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T03:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=30532"},"modified":"2021-02-04T09:58:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T09:58:57","slug":"legends-backing-for-kyrgios-over-umpire-spat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=30532","title":{"rendered":"Legend's backing for Kyrgios over umpire spat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian tennis legend Todd Woodbridge says he can't understand why umpire Nacho Forcadell hit Nick Kyrgios with a time violation<\/a> during his second round match at the Murray River Open.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios<\/a> refused to play after being warned, instead calling for the supervisor, insisting he'd started his serving motion before the clock reached zero.<\/p>\n

The incident happened late in Kyrgios' 6-2, 7-6 win over Harry Bourchier.<\/p>\n

"The tennis isn't about him (the umpire), he's an extra to make sure all this s— goes smoothly," Kyrgios complained to supervisor Cedric Mourier.<\/p>\n

Woodbridge believes Kyrgios had a point.<\/p>\n

"I've never understood an umpire giving Nick a time violation on serve, because he's about the quickest player out there," he told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

"If there was some reason, after an extraordinarily long point, where he went close to the time limit, you'd give him the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n

"Within the next three serves he'd probably be 30 seconds under the limit, with 10 seconds each point."<\/p>\n

Bourchier appeared annoyed by the entire exchange, which came at a crucial point of the match, with Kyrgios serving at 5-5 in the second set.<\/p>\n

"In this scenario, Nick was right," Woodbridge said.<\/p>\n

"What he does need to do is manage the way he deals with it, because that's still something he can improve.<\/p>\n

"If you want respect, you've got to give respect."<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

Woodbridge said Kyrgios, as well as world No.1 Ash Barty<\/a>, are well prepared for next week's Australian Open, even allowing for today's suspension of all lead-up tournaments due to a positive COVID-19 test in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

He said Kyrgios and Barty were the two players with the most to prove this week, having not played in nearly a year, unlike Alex de Minaur and John Millman who both returned to the game after the shutdown in 2020.<\/p>\n

Barty dropped a set in her match yesterday against Marie Bouzkova, but is through to the quarter-finals of the Yarra Valley Classic, while Kyrgios has advanced to the third round of the Murray River Over.<\/p>\n

"Both Barty and Kyrgios have actually had a good preparation now," Woodbridge said.<\/p>\n

\"Ash<\/p>\n

"Barty had a tough match yesterday, which is exactly what you need, it puts you under pressure and you have to adapt to get through.<\/p>\n

"Kyrgios has also come through a tough one in the opening round.<\/p>\n

"They'll both know where their form is at, and matchplay is so much more demanding on the body, so they will be feeling it physically.<\/p>\n

"They're in good shape, and they probably couldn't have asked for anything better. They've both had wins, which is good for the confidence."<\/p>\n

De Minaur hasn't been as fortunate, going down to both Roberto Bautista Agut and Stefanos Tsitsipas during the ATP Cup.<\/p>\n

But Woodbridge said that's not a major concern heading into the Open.<\/p>\n

"We ended up with the toughest group, and a really tough first match against Spain. Alex played two really solid matches, he'll have a bit of a dent to the confidence, having lost twice, but we've got to remember he's played two top-15 players, and that's a hard ask in any week.<\/p>\n

"His performance was quite good.<\/p>\n

"We beat Greece<\/a>, which you'd expect given the quality of their number two player, but overall, the players got what they needed out of it in terms of being ready for next week."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian tennis legend Todd Woodbridge says he can't understand why umpire Nacho Forcadell hit Nick Kyrgios with a time violation during his second round match […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30532"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30534,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30532\/revisions\/30534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}