Kyrgios jumps to Federer defence over accusations as French Open duo kicked out

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Nick Kyrgios has leapt to the defence of Roger Federer after the tennis icon was accused of ‘zipping balls’ at ball boys in old footage that had resurfaced on social media. The 41-year-old retired from the game with a reputation of operating with a classy demeanour on court and rarely landed himself in hot water during matches, but Kyrigos felt he needed to step in after the 20-time Grand Slam winner’s past actions were dredged up in a new debate about players hitting balls at ball boys and girls.

A tweet from tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg suggested that Federer had ‘played with fire’ during his career by hitting the ball in the direction of ball girls and ball boys.

A video compilation of Federer doing just that accompanied the tweet, showing one incident from earlier in his career where one of the ball boys was caught by his shot.

“Regardless of if this was the right call or not, and I don’t think it was, players can afford to be more careful with this stuff, anyhow,” Rothenberg tweeted. “Roger Federer, notably, often played with fire by zipping balls at ball boys in Australia to test their cricket catches. Mixed results.”

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But Kyrgios laughed off the claim that the Swiss had potentially endangered them, dismissing comparisons to players who have been defaulted for lashing out during matches, and insisted Federer’s intentions were harmless.

“Hahaha now it gets ridiculous,” the Australian tweeted to his 609,000 followers. “The [GOAT] having some fun and the ball kids are catching it, making their life memory compared to outside doubles match. Absurd.”

It comes after doubles pairing Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi were disqualified from the French Open on Saturday after Japanese player Kato accidentally caught a ball girl with a stray ball.

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The pair were defaulted by the umpire after protests from their opponents Sara Sorribes Tormo and Marie Bouzkova, despite Kato apologising to the young girl, who was reduced to tears following the incident.

Both players have since received an outpouring of support from fellow tennis professionals in the wake of their disqualification.

The video of Federer hitting balls was also brought up when Novak Djokovic was sensationally kicked out of the US Open for hitting a line judge with a ball in 2020. The Serbian was tipped to win the tournament but he was defaulted for accidentally catching the female line judge during his match with Pablo Carreno Busta.

At the time, it was suggested Federer would not have been disqualified in the same manner as Djokovic, and the debate continues to rage on after the latest incident at Roland Garros.

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