Nick Kyrgios, the controversial Australian former player turned Wimbledon commentator, has taken aim at his BBC colleague Andrew Castle’s commentary saying that it showed he had “never played tennis at a high level”.
Kyrgios said that it was “disrespectful” of Castle to criticise the standard of play in Taylor Fritz’s fourth-round victory over Alexander Zverev.
Castle, a former British No 1 who has led the BBC’s Wimbledon commentary team for two decades, said of the match: “You can’t say it’s been the most captivating tennis, to be frank.”
Minutes later, Kyrgios, 29, who joined the BBC team this year, wrote on Twitter/X: “‘Not captivating’ — was a comment from a commentator who is doing the Zverev & Fritz match.
“This alone tells me that they have probably never played tennis at a high level. Two of the most elite servers we have. Quite disrespectful. C’mon be better.”
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Castle, now 60, played in the 1980s and reached the Wimbledon second round in 1986 and 1987 and the Australian Open mixed doubles final in 1987. At his peak, he reached a world ranking of 80, compared with Kyrgios, who reached No 13 in 2016. Kyrgios also won the Australian Open doubles title in 2022 with Thanasi Kokkinakis, before injuries to his wrist, knee and foot forced him into a long career break.
During last year’s men’s singles final at Wimbledon between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, Kyrgios also called Castle a “clown” and accused him of “spoiling the match big time”.
• Nick Kyrgios: I don’t love tennis – I’d quit if it wasn’t for my family
The Australian’s appointment on the BBC team was already controversial as the so-called “bad boy” of tennis admitted last year that he had assaulted his ex-girlfriend. She suffered wrist, knee and foot injuries. He pleaded guilty but avoided a criminal conviction, as the judge in Canberra, the nation’s capital, ruled that the push was “a single act of stupidity or frustration”.
Caroline Nokes, the Tory MP and former women and equalities committee chair, said: “The BBC should hang its head in shame” and added that the appointment was “a disgrace and shows the utter contempt our national broadcaster has towards women”.
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The BBC said that it did not condone Kyrgios’s behaviour, but the legal process had concluded, and that should not prevent him from sharing “insight and analysis of the action on the court”.
While sports commentators are often marmite figures, other fans of the game appeared to be in lock-step with Kyrgios in their distaste at Castle’s verbiage.
On the British Tennis Fans Facebook group Castle was described by one of its 6,000 members as the “Hello! magazine of commentary” and was “utterly useless, pointless and irrelevant to tennis,” while another said that he was “the man who’ll dredge up absolutely anything so he can never stop talking”.
However, he also found pockets of support in the thread posted on Monday, with one saying: “I like him, why do people keep picking on what he says?”
