Nick Kyrgios lashes out at Stuttgart crowd over racial abuse amid loss to Andy Murray

Australian tennis superstar Nick Kyrgios took to his official Instagram handle on Saturday night, following his Stuttgart Open semi-final loss against Andy Murray, and said he faced racist abuse from the crowds during the match. The 27-year-old was handed a point penalty for breaking his racket at the end of the first-set tiebreaker and a game penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct in the second set. The game penalty came as a result of Kyrgios' action of approaching the crowd and appearing to ask, “What did you say?”. 

Kyrgios was then seen sitting down and not continuing the match until he had spoken to the Stuttgart Open supervisor. Meanwhile, lashing out at the crowd on his Instagram stories, the 27-year-old said, “When is this going to stop? Dealing with racial slurs from the crowd? I understand that my behaviour isn’t the best all the time — but ‘you little black sheep’ ‘shut up and play a little', comments like this are not acceptable. When I retaliate to the crowd I get penalised. This is messed up.”

Andy Murray will face Matteo Berrettini, after winning against Nick Kyrgios

Meanwhile, courtesy of the triumph against the Aussie tennis star, Murray will now play in his first grass-court singles final since winning the Wimbledon Championship in 2016. The three-time Grand Slam champion will now face second-seeded Italian player Matteo Berrettini in the Stuttgart final on Sunday. The Brit earlier defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals on Friday, which was his first win in six years, over an opponent, who sits in the top-5 ATP singles rankings.

A look at Nick Kyrgios' Stuttgart Open campaign

Kyrgios, on the other hand, started his Stuttgart Open campaign by earning a 7-6 (3), 6-3 win over Czech tennis player Jiri Lehecka in the Round of 32 match. He then defeated Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili in the Round of 16. He made his way into the semi-final after defeating Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics through a walkover in the quarter-final.

This was not the first time Kyrgios came into light for a controversial matter, as he earlier made headlines during his BNP Paribas Open semi-final match against Spanish tennis ace Rafael Nadal for throwing his racquet in frustration and almost hitting a ball boy on the court. However, he later took to his official Twitter handle and informed him that he had traced down the ball boy and asked for apologies for him.

(Image: @theweissenhof/Twitter)