Canberra tennis star Nick Kyrgios weighed into the Novak Djokovic disqualification drama, asking his social media followers what sort of ban he would face if he had been involved in the US Open incident.
More than 44,000 fans have already voted on his Twitter poll, which was posted in the wake of Djokovic being defaulted for hitting a ball at a linesperson in New York on Monday morning.
Kyrgios and Djokovic have an already frosty relationship, sparked by Djokovic's decision to host an exhibition tournament this year despite coronavirus concerns. Kyrgios said the tournament was pure stupidity and Djokovic, one of the most successful players of all time, was being irresponsible.
He didn't attack Djokovic for hitting the ball at the linesman, which struck the female judge in the throat. Instead, he asked what would have happened if he was involved.
"Swap me for jokers incident. 'Accidentally hitting the ball kid in the throat' how many years would I be banned for," Kyrgios tweeted.
The options given were five, 10, or 20.
Kyrigos pulled out of the US Open last month, due to health concerns as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the United States.
"Let's take a breath here and remember what's important, which is health and safety as a community," Kyrgios said at the time.
"We can rebuild our sport and the economy but we can never recover lives lost."
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World No.1 Djokovic lost his bid for an 18th grand slam title and his 26-0 start to this season.
The top seed had just lost a game to Carreno Busta, to fall behind 6-5 in the first set.
As he walked to the sideline for the changeover, Djokovic smacked a ball behind him.
The ball hit a female line judge, who dropped to her knees at the back of the court.
After a discussion of several minutes with officials on court, Djokovic walked over to shake hands with Carreno Busta, and the default was announced.
"In accordance with the grand slam rulebook, following his actions of intentionally hitting a ball dangerously or recklessly within the court or hitting a ball with negligent disregard of the consequences, the US Open tournament referee defaulted Novak Djokovic from the 2020 US Open," a US Tennis Association statement said.
"Because he was defaulted Djokovic will lose all ranking points earned at the US Open and will be fined the prize money won at the tournament in addition to any or all fines levied with respect to the offending incident."
He will also face a fine for not doing a press conference.
- with AAP