Wimbledon: Tsitsipas calls Kyrgios 'evil' and a 'bully' as feud continues

There is no love lost between tennis rivals Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios. The two have been at odds with each other both on and off the court for the past several years, and their most recent clash at Wimbledon led to a war of words that had the Greek player slamming the Australian for having an "evil side" and being a "bully."

Kyrgios won the third round match over Tsitsipas, but the battle continued well outside Court One at SW19. Both players were extremely agitated on court, with Kyrgios receiving a warning for shouting expletives. For his part, Tsitsipas was also warned for firing a ball into the crowd out of frustration.

After the match, Tsitsipas said, "It's constant bullying, that's what he does. He bullies opponents. He was probably a bully at school himself. I don't like bullies."

He then accused Kyrgios of constantly putting other people down. "He has some good traits in his character, as well. But he also has a very evil side to him, which if it's exposed, it can really do a lot of harm and bad to the people around him," he said as quoted by CNN.

Kyrgios denied the accusations, pointing out that it was the Greek player who had tried to hit him with a shot across the net. "He was the one hitting balls at me, he was the one that hit a spectator, he was the one that smacked it out of the stadium," he said.

He then added that he did nothing "disrespectful" towards his opponent, but called Tsitsipas "soft" in light of his accusations. He then went on to claim that as a matter of fact, he has many friends in the locker room, while the Greek player is "not liked."

Tsitsipas went further to claim that the Australian distracts and manipulates opponents. He feels that behaviour exhibited by Kyrgios must not be tolerated in tennis. Meanwhile, Kyrgios is only worried about the results and feels that Tsitsipas should be more focused on just trying to find a way to win during their on-court battles.