John McEnroe has revealed his regret that Nick Kyrgios will miss Wimbledon after the BBC tried to stop him speaking about the axed Aussie. He has not played The Championships since losing the 2022 final to Novak Djokovic.
The former world No.13 pulled out earlier this month with a knee injury and has only played four singles matches this year. The controversial Kygrios has also been removed from the BBC commentary team after appearing last year.
Asked by Express Sport if he will miss Kyrgios at Wimbledon, three-time winner McEnroe said: “I don’t know what Nick’s doing. Is he playing?”
At this point, the BBC press officer intervened to say: “Sorry, John, you don’t have to go into your personal feelings with Nick Kyrgios.”
But the American, 66, ignored the advice and said: “I’m okay talking about Nick Kyrgios. If anyone’s heard me talk about Nick Kyrgios, it’s in the sense that I would prefer to see him playing, because he’s one of the most talented guys that I’ve seen on a tennis court.
“In any sport watching and especially someone who’s playing the same sport I play, you always try to maximize, hopefully, what you can accomplish. I didn’t feel like I did. And so you put a lot of pressure on yourself. And so it’s sort of a shame that he hasn’t been able to figure out the way to do that. We all have problems with that, but it’s too bad. I don’t know why he’s not playing.”
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Something else missing at Wimbledon this year will be line judges with the Ralph Lauren-wearing officials replaced by Electronic Line Calling for the first time in SW19.
Back in 1981, McEnroe was furious when a serve was called out by a line judge and unleashed the famous rant: “You cannot be serious. That ball was on the line. Chalk flew up.”
Speaking before the 2025 tournament, McEnroe said: “And as far as linesmen, I don’t even know how to answer that, because I had an obviously long history of linesmen, but it seems like if they have electronic equipment that works, that’s preferable to, as fast as the balls being hit, to expect human beings to be able to get everyone right is a big ask, even for someone who complained a lot about it.
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“Do I wish I’d had electronic line calling at Wimbledon? Yes, I do. Actually. I’d have less white hair, and I might have a little more and I would have wasted less energy on that I presume. Maybe I would have been more boring. I wouldn’t have been here, speaking to you now, and I wouldn’t have been commentating. So I got to look at the bright side.
“But there’s something in the interaction that you miss, I believe, and there’s something about that that I think people will miss. But it’s also nice to know if, in fact, it’s accurate, and hopefully it’s 100% accurate, or 99.9% I don’t know what it is – you hate to have that find out later that a call that was made on match point was not accurate, that would be truly infuriating.”
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