Nick Kyrgios trolls Croatian pair as doubles partner lifts lid on alleged Australian Open gym spat

Nick Kyrgios told his Australian Open doubles opponents to ‘enjoy your flight home’ after he and partner Thanasi Kokkinakis dumped them out of the tournament.

The Aussie pair beat top seeds Mate Pavic and Nikola Mektic to reach the third round, but in the aftermath they alleged one of the Croatian’s trainers confronted them in the gym and ‘threatened to fight’ them.

Pavic’s trainer was reportedly unhappy with how things played out on court with the energetic duo using the home crowd to their advantage and Kyrgios also hitting his opponent with the ball during one shot.

Kokkinakis has now lifted the lid on what was said in the gym shortly after the match.

‘He came up and smashed a foam roller against a pole as hard as he can,’ Kokkinakis said. ‘I wasn’t sure if he was kind of joking… I wasn’t sure if he was about to berate his players.

‘He came up to Nick and said we were being disrespectful. Nick hit the opponent with a ball, but that’s normal. Doubles players have got unbelievable hands, so you have to go at them.

‘They said we were showboating, but I’m sure if we played away in Croatia it would’ve been the same thing. It was just our energy and I think at the end of the day they were a bit salty they lost.

<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>Things got HEATED in the locker room after Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis’ doubles win ð³ Grothy got the inside word ð¶ï¸#AusOpen – Live on Channel 9 and 9Now pic.twitter.com/iD26iHnUW1

‘They’ve won their fair share of tournaments so I thought they’d handle losing a little better than that.

‘At the end of the day, we’re just trying to entertain the crowd. We didn’t mean anything disrespectful, we’re trying to get ourselves and our energy up. It was a little aggressive on his part