Nick Kyrgios has slammed the “disgusting” behavior of some tennis fans, after video circulated on social media of Daniil Medvedev being heckled after his second round loss to the Australian in Montreal.
Key points:
Video showed Daniil Medvedev being called a “loser” by fans as he walked towards the locker room
On social media, Nick Kyrgios said fans needed to “show some respect” to the number one men’s player
Medvedev said he had felt compelled to stop and talk to the fans because, “when someone mocks me, I’ll respond”
In a video re-tweeted by Kyrgios, Medvedev is shown being called a “loser” as he walks towards the locker room with security.
Medvedev then stops, turning and speaking with the fan, as someone shouts “you respect us and we respect you.”
Others can be heard imploring the fan to apologise.
On Twitter, Kyrgios labeled the fan’s behavior as “disgusting”.
“This is the best we have in the sport, fans need to show some respect.”
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The interaction came after Kyrgios had defeated the Russian world number one at the ATP’s Montreal Masters, 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-2.
At a press conference for the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, Medvedev said he had felt compelled to approach the spectator.
“When someone mocks me, I’ll respond,” he said.
“It would be bad to let people shout bad things at me and just keep walking. I will ask what his problem is.”
Daniil Medvedev responded to questions about the incident at a press conference for the Western and Southern Open.(Getty Images: Matthew Stockman)
Medvedev said he had also talked to the father of the fan who had called him a “loser”.
“The father of the guy said something to me also — I say: ‘Educate your kid’,” Medvedev said.
“This is one of the first times it has happened to me. It doesn’t really happen a lot.”
Medvedev implied that abuse from fans was much more common online than in real life.
“On social media [insults] are a bit out of control,” he added.
Kyrgios eventually lost in the quarter-finals of the Montreal Masters to Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz.
Hurkacz, the number eight seed, won 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (5-7), 6-1.
The Australian had previously won 15 of his last 16 matches, and finished runner-up at Wimbledon.
A shambolic Manchester United side conceded four goals in the opening 35 minutes in a 4-0 drubbing at Brentford on Saturday as their woeful start to the Premier League season continued.
United’s seventh successive away league defeat was assured long before the interval as Brentford took ruthless advantage of a catalog of errors by the visitors.
The route began in the 10th minute when United keeper David de Gea allowed a weak shot by Josh Dasilva to slip past him.
Things got worse for United eight minutes later when De Gea played the ball out to former Brentford player Christian Eriksen, who was caught in possession and Mathias Jensen slotted home.
When United’s defense failed to deal with a corner and Ben Mee glanced in a close-range header to make it 3-0, the Brentford fans were ecstatic while United’s new manager Erik ten Hag looked ashen-faced in his technical area.
Brentford’s fourth was a gem as Ivan Toney delivered a diagonal ball to Bryan Mbeumo from a counter-attack and Mbeumo calmly beat De Gea.
Ten Hag made three substitutions at half-time with Raphael Varane, Tyrell Malacia and Scott McTominay coming on, but despite a slight improvement United offered little fight.
Brentford’s fans serenaded their players with “Hey Jude” at the final whistle while United’s players looked crestfallen as they trudged off rock bottom of the table, having also lost their opener at home to Brighton & Hove Albion.
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It was the first time since 1960 that United have conceded at least six goals in their first two matches of a top-flight season and the first time they have lost their opening two matches since 1992 — when they went on to win the title.
This side, however, looks woefully inadequate to mount any kind of challenge and Ten Hag, who was taunted by the Brentford fans, appears to have a huge job on his hands.
The Dutchman is the first Manchester United manager to lose his first two games in charge since John Chapman in 1921.
“It’s easy to dismantle this United side, just be organized and fight and you’re there,” said former United player and Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville.
For Brentford, whose starting line-up cost in the region of 55 million pounds ($93.75 million) compared to the more than 400 million pounds ($681.5 million) of United’s, have picked up four points in their first two games.
Fans continued to protest against club owners the Glazers as Manchester United lost 4-0 to Brentford.(Getty Images: Offside/Mark Leech)
The crushing defeat will do nothing to soothe the feelings of Manchester United fans, already angry at club owners the Glazer family.
Poor results and a perceived failure to sign the right players to revamp the team in the off-season had left fans continuing long-standing calls for the Glazers to sell the club.
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United fans on social media are trying to organize a boycott of next week’s home game against long-time rivals Liverpool, using the hashtag Empty Old Trafford.
In other Premier League action, defending champions Manchester City swept to the top of the table, thumping newly-promoted Bournemouth 4-0 to emphasize the gulf between them and neighbors United.
City under manager Pep Guardiola have scored six times and are yet to concede in two games this campaign, as they bid for a fifth Premier League title in six seasons.
Arsenal are the big improvers so far this season, sitting second to City on goal difference after their 4-2 win over Leicester City.
New signing Gabriel Jesus marked his home debut with a brilliant performance, scoring twice and setting up two more.
Southampton and Leeds ended 0-0, as did Fulham and Wolves and Brighton’s match against Newcastle, while Everton lost 2-1 to Aston Villa.
Mark Pigott remembers the cries of black crows breaking a heavy silence after the Thredbo disaster.
Pigott, an Olympic skier, watched from afar as rescue workers searched through rubble in the days after the landslide that claimed 18 lives at the ski resort in July 1997.
“Whenever they thought they could hear something, they went: ‘Hush, hush, hush’,” he says.
“You could hear a pin drop across the resort. Often the only thing you could hear [were] the black crows.”
Ski instructor Stuart Diver was the only survivor. He was rescued after many hours of tunneling through unstable debris to where he was trapped under concrete slabs.(ABC News (video still))
Pigott — who competed in acroski at the 1992 Winter Olympics — was in Thredbo and Perisher for training at the time of the landslide, which decimated two ski lodges just before midnight on July 30.
While staying at the nearby town of Jindabyne, Pigott was woken up by a dawn phone call from his father.
“All he said to me was: ‘Where are you?’ I said: ‘Jindabyne why?’ And he said: ‘Don’t worry, you’ll find out’.
“I ran and put on the TV and, sure enough, there it was.”
Saturday, July 30, at 11:40pm, will mark 25 years since the landslide, one of the deadliest natural disasters in Australian history.
After sunset, skiers will mark the occasion by carrying flares down the slopes, a long-time weekend winter tradition at the resort.
They will remember the victims, who were all part of the tight-knit Thredbo resort community, including hotel staff, maintenance workers, management and housekeepers.
Ski instructor Stuart Diver was the only survivor, after being trapped in a small air pocket under one of the lodges for three days. His wife of him, Sally, was one of the victims.
Skiers will do a memorial flare run on the mountain at Thredbo.(AAP: Mick Tsikas)
Mr Diver — who is now Thredbo’s general manager — says Australians continue to have an emotional attachment to his story.
“Everyone remembers where they were on that day, when the landslide ended,” Mr Diver said in an interview on the Better Than Yesterday podcast last year.
“I’m really no different to anyone else, I just happened to go through an unfortunate situation and come through the other end.”
In 2000, state coroner Derrick Hand found the landslide was triggered when water from a leaking main saturated an embankment on the Alpine Way road.
The ground gave way near the Carinya ski lodge, shearing it from its foundations and pushing it onto the Bimbadeen lodge.
The rescue effort and resulting investigation have gone on to inform disaster training around the world.(Australian Emergency Management Institute)
Witnesses described hearing creaking, groaning and screeching “not unlike a steam train coming to a halt” in the hours before the collapse.
But it is the silence that stands out in many people’s memories of the aftermath, as rescuers used highly sensitive audio equipment in their attempts to find signs of life.
The rescue effort and resulting investigation have gone on to inform disaster training locally around the world.
In NSW, the first search and rescue course took place a year after the incident and has been running ever since.
Assistant Commissioner David Lewis says emergency services learned many valuable lessons from the disaster.(abcnews)
There are about 250 Fire and Rescue NSW personnel currently trained, with the organization now accredited with the United Nations International Search and Rescue Advisory Group — one of about 60 teams across the world.
“In 25 years, we’ve certainly come a long way, we’ve learned more valuable lessons,” Assistant Commissioner David Lewis said.
“It was a tragic event but, out of those tragic events, we’ve had great learnings where Fire and Rescue would now be one of the world leaders in urban search and rescue.
“The main thing for us is that we learn from these tragedies so we can ensure that our communities are safer into the future.”
NSW Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said Fire and Rescue had faced one of its toughest day since its history.
“On that day our firefighters, 165 of them, were to subsequently receive commendations for their meritorious service during that marathon search and rescue operation faced with incredible challenges,” she said.
“They’re some of the most highly trained in the world and they played that critical role in Thredbo 25 years ago and what the organization has learned has stood them in good stead both now and well into the future.
“It certainly laid the foundation for the organization’s world-leading urban search and rescue capabilities.”
NSW police this week also paid tribute to the rescuers, saying they worked in extremely dangerous conditions but still managed to find Mr Diver “beyond all odds”.
“Confronting rescue crews was the risk of further landslides, uneven rubble, leaking sewage and constant running water,” police said.
“Rescue operators also risked being affected by hyperthermia and frostbite in the winter, sub-zero temperatures.”
Pigott said although people had slowly moved on, the memories of that winter night remained.
“It’s incredibly sad, very raw and personal, because everybody knew somebody involved.”
At 6:10pm this evening the ski resort will hold a flare run and special fireworks ceremony to commemorate the tragedy.
