{"id":264736,"date":"2025-07-14T17:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T17:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/264736\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T17:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T17:04:10","slug":"nick-kyrgios-is-convinced-he-knows-what-would-have-happened-if-he-ever-played-prime-john-mcenroe-in-a-competitive-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/264736\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Kyrgios is convinced he knows what would have happened if he ever played prime John McEnroe in a competitive match"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nick Kyrgios and John McEnroe are two of the more famously outspoken players in the history of tennis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kyrgios has previously beaten the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal<\/a>, reaching his first Grand Slam singles final at Wimbledon<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n

However, he has not been anywhere near a major final in recent times, as Kyrgios has been struggling with injuries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Australian has competed against and beat many of the biggest names on the ATP Tour<\/a>, but he never got the chance to play against the aforementioned McEnroe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"MiamiPhoto by Rich Storry\/Getty ImagesWhat Nick Kyrgios thinks would have happened if he ever played John McEnroe<\/p>\n

As part of the Wimbledon coverage for TNT Sports, Kyrgios<\/a> was asked 20 questions about all things tennis and more.<\/p>\n

One of those questions asked Kyrgios which was his favourite match, but he did not name the Wimbledon final and instead his semifinal against Roger Federer<\/a> at the Miami Open<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n

Despite losing that match, Kyrgios has fond memories of playing Federer in Miami<\/a> in a three set thriller. <\/p>\n

\u201cProbably against Roger Federer in Miami,\u201d answered Kyrgios. \u201cIt was a crazy atmosphere to play in and that match is very well known.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyrgios was then asked to name a player he would have liked to have played against, but never got the chance to.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old quickly named McEnroe, but suggested that the American would have probably been defaulted due to his antics.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn McEnroe. I think he would have been defaulted because I could get under his skin pretty easily,\u201d said Kyrgios.<\/p>\n

The attention then quickly turned to one of his less fine moments, as Kyrgios was questioned over a tennis moment that haunts him.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios admitted that he just lost control when he was disqualified for throwing a chair at the Italian Open<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably when I threw a chair in Rome and got defaulted,\u201d said Kyrgios. \u201cIt was such an incredible match, it was a soccer crowd and I lost control.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

How many times was John McEnroe defaulted in his career?<\/p>\n

Although Kyrgios believes that he could make McEnroe get defaulted if they ever played, he was only ever disqualified from a match once in his career.<\/p>\n

That came at a Grand Slam tournament, with McEnroe being disqualified at the 1990 Australian Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After leading Mikael Pernfors by two sets to one, McEnroe was defaulted after receiving three code violations for unsportsmanlike conduct, racket abuse and swearing in a conversation with umpire Gerry Armstrong.<\/p>\n

When looking back on that incident in 2015, McEnroe told the New York Times<\/a> that he thought he should not have been defaulted for what he did at the Australian Open<\/a> that year, but perhaps in other matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was rather ignominious I would say; it was almost so shocking that it was,\u201d said McEnroe. \u201cI pushed it to the limit a lot, so I suppose that even though I don\u2019t feel like I should have been defaulted, say, in that particular match, I\u2019m sure there were a few others where I probably deserved to be.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Kyrgios and John McEnroe are two of the more famously outspoken players in the history of tennis.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[4294,13793,15171,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-264736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-john-mcenroe","10":"tag-nick-kyrgios","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114852676490465760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}