Nick Kyrgios took a cheeky shot at Alexander Zverev after losing to Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open.
World No 1 Nadal won an entertaining match on Rod Laver Arena 6-3, 3-6, 7-6, 7-6 to progress to the quarter-finals.
Kyrgios has surprised many people throughout his Melbourne campaign as he has started the 2020 season with a new-found maturity.
And the Aussie still has his sense of humour as he took a subtle dig at world No 7 Zverev after crashing out of his home Grand Slam.
Ahead of the Australian Open Zverev ruled out Kyrgios’ chances of winning the title and fired a shot at the world No 26.
“There’s a lot of young guys that are right now, no offence, just better than him,” Zverev said.
And following Kyrgios’ exit he joked that he was the worst player left in the draw.
“I mean, I think I’m playing better tennis than I was,” Kyrgios said. “You look at my draw back then to the opponents I played this time around, probably a lot tougher this time around.
“But, I mean, looking how far I’ve come, I guess there were only 15 players better than me in the draw. That was for Zverev, but that was a joke (laughter).
“No, I mean, feel like I’m playing good tennis. As I said tonight, I was a couple points away from winning. But that’s how it goes sometimes.”
“I just couldn’t get a ball past him. I was trying to serve and volley, trying to dropshot. Eventually I would have to win the point three times to win a point.
“That’s just the champion he is, the player he is. He makes you play the extra ball. I thought he played well, considering how slow it was.
“I mean, he served really well, I thought. Hit his backhand slice really well.
“I mean, he played well. He just played the bigger points well, better than I did.”
