Nick Kyrgios stuns audience on his BBC debut – by being polite and thoughtful
Nick Kyrgios took a contrasting sartorial approach to Tim Henman at Wimbledon
No one can have been surprised when Nick Kyrgios was announced as a member of the BBC commentary team for this year’s Wimbledon. After all, anyone who has ever seen him in action will know he has been auditioning for the role throughout his career.
His on-court appearances have invariably been soundtracked by a constant gurning churn of Tourette’s-style mutterings, invariably involving some complicated conspiracy of which he was the central victim. He has railed against umpires, against his own coaches, against anyone in the crowd who had enjoyed a touch too much of the local hospitality. This is a tennis player who simply could not shut up.
So it came as a considerable surprise that, now charged with providing some legitimate commentary, the 29-year-old professional Aussie bad boy proved to be quiet, thoughtful, deferential, the unostentatious opposite of his on-court demeanour. Less the serial narcissist, more the seasoned observer. And one entirely on message. Asked early on in his first engagement commentating on Carlos Alcaraz’s opening match, if he would rather win Wimbledon or the Australian Open, he appeared to have been scripted by the All England Club PR department.
“A hundred per cent Wimbledon,” he said. “Wimbledon is the greatest tennis event ever. If you win here you are tennis royalty forever.”
Not that he ever has. But then, as was evident by Tim Henman, sitting alongside him in the broadcasting booth, winning the tournament has never been the first requirement of getting a BBC gig commentating on it. He was still at it, buffing up the occasion, an hour later as Emma Raducanu made her way on court, when he was served up a gentle lob by Clare Balding to enthuse about the glories of the competition.
“Like me she’d have ringed the Wimbledon fortnight in her diary months ago and would have aimed for that. It means more,” he said.
When it was announced that Kyrgios would be a part of the BBC coverage there were some loud suggestions this was an entirely inappropriate appointment. Not so much because of his on-court demeanour, more for his off-court behaviour, particularly towards the women in his life.
Clearly, though, the BBC wanted more
But if the producers were hoping for a bit of controversy from their new signing, they must have been hugely disappointed. Kyrgios turned out to be all calm, rational observation. Of Alcaraz he said things like: “Not many errors off that backhand swing.” And “the width he brings, he can break the sidelines so easy.” And “his hands, his intangibles, his slice, his dinking: he has it all.”
Given how self-absorbed he is on court, it was indeed surprising how much detail he had observed of others. And how much he sought others’ opinion.
“What do you think Tim?” he asked Henman of several Hawk-Eye line calls. So deferential was he to the former British No 1, it will not be long before he adopts his colleague’s approach of dropping a couple of the event sponsors’ names into the mix to keep the All England Club happy.
Clearly, though, the BBC wanted more. So anxious were the producers to present him as some sort of in-house rebel, that when he made a vaguely sarcastic remark about how Henman would have smashed that volley, the match commentator Nick Lester intervened with a swift “steady on, we’ve got a fortnight to go”. Which sounded like a David Brent line from The Office Christmas party.
In fact about the only moment of anything approaching levity that Kyrgios provided was when he responded to a would-be comedy shouter among the Centre Court crowd with the line “the Pimms is kicking in.” Edgy stuff.
So unobtrusive was his first outing, that when he was finally seen on camera his appearance was something of a surprise. When he and his new double-act partner Henman were interviewed by Balding ahead of the Raducanu match, let’s just say their styles of dress were a touch at odds. While Henman was in full collar and tie establishment clobber, Kyrgios looked as if he had come straight from Glastonbury. On his inevitable baseball cap was the self-declamatory logo “outgoing”.
Which, as a description of his broadcasting style, turned out to be about as wide of the mark as a Kieran Trippier shot at goal.
Kyrgios: I am misunderstood but I regret endorsing Tate
Nick Kyrgios expressed regret for sharing social media posts by self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate after making his debut as a BBC co-commentator at Wimbledon.
The Australian said he has to be “smarter” and “better” as he had “no idea” about Tate’s pending court case at the time of the “naive retweet”.
In a Piers Morgan interview, he said of his bad-boy reputation: “I am misunderstood a little bit.”
The BBC sparked outrage among senior MPs and women’s campaigners for hiring Kyrgios.
Caroline Nokes, the women and equalities committee chair, said the corporation should “hang its head in shame” after he last year admitted assaulting an ex-girlfriend.
In his interview with Morgan, Kyrgios said: “I feel like I’m a very good person.”
“I definitely think I am misunderstood a little bit,” said Kyrgios. “I think people on the street, when they look at me, they think I’m going to be doing something crazy, and ‘Is this guy going to lose his marbles at any time?’ But it’s just something that I’ve been branded with, and I think I’ve kind of run with it a little bit. But closest family and friends know that I’m actually quite calm.”
Kyrgios, who shared a post from Tate in February on X this year, suggested he was unaware Tate and his brother Tristan faced a trial in Romania after being arrested in December 2023 over allegations of rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang – charges they deny.
“At the time I had no idea, with anything that was going on in his life, or anything that he was allegedly doing,” said Kyrgios of Tate. “I was just on my phone, saw the tweet, and it made me think. The relationship I’ve had with tennis, or things that I do, I think I am obsessed with tennis because I’m still here at 30 playing and I’m still training. That particular thing, for me, was just a naive retweet and everything that’s come from it is, for me, I wish, obviously, I wouldn’t have done it, if I knew that all of these things would have happened.”
He added: “I have to be a bit smarter than that, because not everything that he does as well is, like - it’s not good. So I have to be better than that, because I have a lot of people to look up to me… I just have to be better.”
Kyrgios has contested one match in the past 18 months on account of various injuries, notably his knee and wrist. He is targeting a return for the US Open.
“This has been the hardest point for me, being so close and then being held back by some injuries,” he said. “I was having pain in my knee and my wrist, and I just played through it. I had a couple people looking at it, and they were like, ‘You probably should slow down or maybe take some time off’. I kept playing through it, and then obviously got to a point where I had to take a step back. But it’s coming along well and hopefully you’ll be seeing me [play] before the end of the year.”
Kyrgios said his commentary style will not be as critical as the likes of Gary Lineker have been of England at Euro 2024.
“I’m one of the commentators that won’t drill players,” he said. “I won’t drill them as hard as I’ve been drilled. If they’re making a mistake or doing something a bit silly, I might say, ‘oh’... I can’t really have a leg to stand on if they’re breaking a racket or something, but I also know how hard it is. It’s a brutal sport and Wimbledon is absolute top of anything you can achieve. So I know the pressure that all these players are going through.”
Kyrgios admitted assaulting an ex-girlfriend in February last year but a magistrate in Canberra, Australia, called the incident “a single act of stupidity or frustration” when sparing him a criminal record.
Telegraph Sport understands BBC chiefs gave the green light to recruit Kyrgios after concluding the legal process was over and he had offered an explanation.
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