August 15, 2025

Open Court

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Flashback: 10 years ago, Kyrgios and Wawrinka went at it in Montreal

MONTREAL – It’s hard to believe how time flies, sometimes.

It was exactly 10 years ago that the infamous on-court incident involving then 20-year-old Nick Kyrgios and 30-year-old Stan Wawrinka continued into the locker room.

And led to the blowing up of bandwidth and endless debate and, on some level, the setting of the general impression of Kyrgios in the universe forevermore.

And this was long before we knew what we now know about Kyrgios. Who is now the same age as Wawrinka was then.

At the time, though, he was ranked No. 41 and on the comeup, bringing a lot of attention to tennis with his mercurial on-court personality, hair styling choices and flashy game.

The kids were all over it – including, as you can see here, 14-year-old Félix Auger-Aliassime (who was somewhat bemused by the whole show).

But during his second-round match against Wawrinka on the stadium court, this happened.

He addressed it (a bit) during an on-court interview after Wawrinka retired at 67 (8) 63 40 when his back went out on him.

It all seemed fine at the net.

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Surprisingly, there were almost no media still on hand at the end of this one. I guess they had dinner plans – even though it was the biggest thing to happen that day by a long way.

But Open Court was there. And we pulled out the phone to record the small gathering afterwards. Those videos went viral at the time, and opened up a whole new wing of Open Court tennis content that continues to this day.

Kyrgios said they hadn’t seen each other in the locker room.

Wawrinka had a different version of events.

The next day, Nadal had an opinion.

Then – onto a match v Isner

In the lovely, quick pace that used to be the Masters 1000, Kyrgios didn’t have much time to stew over it. He had to go out and play a third round against John Isner.

He went down 7-5, 6-3. And the Montreal crowd – having picked up on this by now – didn’t go easy on him.

Afterwards, he went back over it a little.

A decade on … Wawrinka still grinding

Kyrgios is 30 now. And although he’s made attempts to come back from wrist surgery over the last two years, none of them have had any staying power. He’s been entered in the tournaments this summer with his protected ranking, but he hasn’t played any of them.

As for Wawrinka, who is now 40, he’s still grinding. Playing main draws at ATP events when he can get in with wild cards (his current ranking is No. 152). And playing Challengers the rest of the time.

He’s in Cancun this week at a Challenger event. And while he was hoping to get a main-draw wild card at the US Open, which he won in 2016, that didn’t materialize as the wild cards were announced Wednesday.

Wawrinka isn’t entered in the qualifying. (Can you blame him? He’s well past the need for that grind). So despite his still being very competitive, still, it appears we won’t see him.

As for Kyrgios, he’s not yet withdrawn from the US Open although, in a best-of-five format in the heat, it’s hard to imagine him giving it a go.

It was announced earlier in the summer that he would play the “mixed singles” tournament with Evolve agency-mate Naomi Osaka (his boss, technically). But they are not on the list at the moment although there are two wild card teams still to be announced. And no doubt a few who will cut the cord last minute.

But it’s entirely possible that we’ll never see either of them at the US Open again.

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