Ben Stiller dragged into fiery Kyrgios outburst
Fans of Nick Kyrgios are no strangers to the tennis bad boy's on-court antics. It's part of what makes him so watchable – especially since he so often has the prowess and natural talent to back it up and get the best of the world's top players.
But this week at Indian Wells the entertaining Aussie may have let his temper get the better of him during a tense and tight loss to Spaniard Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals.
Nadal was able to hang on and clinch the contest 7-6, 5-7, 6-4 – but there were plenty of fiery outbursts along the way to keep the audience enthralled. After being broken in the third, Kyrgios took aim at chair umpire Carlos Bernardes for failing to keep unruly elements of the crowd quiet – with quite a few occasions of people in the crown yelling just as the second serve was about to commence.
“How long are you going to let that s**t go on for? How long? How long? How long, bro? How long?” Kyrgios yelled at Bernardes. “If you did something about it before, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.
“It happens again and again — and look at the f***ing score! Look at the score! It’s your job to control that, no one else’s.
“It’ll keep happening over and over and over again. Say something!”
In his defence, Bernardes replied to Kyrgios that he had already instructed the crowd to remain silent. That last outburst came in the third set when Kyrgios made a surprising left-turn by dragging Ben Stiller into the argument.
The Hollywood heavyweight was perched in the front row, and when someone in the crowd angered Kyrgios, he called out to that person, “are you good at tennis?” before turning to Stiller to further illustrate his point “Exactly, so don’t tell me how to play. Do I tell HIM how to act?”
Kyrgios later revved up the crowd when he won a key point, but Nadal was able to hold serve and creep ahead 6-5.
After that the match continued to slip away, as Kyrgios missed a chance to break Nadal, who then progressed through to the semis.
Images: Getty