Thanasi Kokkinakis is the tennis player at the centre of Nick Kyrgios' on-court sex sledge when the controversial Australian star said "Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend" to Stan Wawrinka at the Montreal Masters.
Kyrgios was heavily criticised throughout Wimbledon for his petulant behaviour, but the talented tennis prodigy maintained the support of his native country until this latest controversy saw him chastised in the Australian media.
19-year-old Kokkinakis is a fellow Aussie and good friend of Kyrgios, however he has now commented on the incident and said Kyrgios was "out of order" to abuse World Number 5 Stan Wawrinka regarding his girlfriend, 19-year-old rising WTA star Donna Vekic.
Kokkinakis told Fox Sports that Kyrgios had apologised for the incident, and that he had cleared the air with both Wawrinka and Vekic.
He said,
I let him know. I made it pretty clear that he can't be doing that. If he's got a problem, he's got to say it in private
The way he went about it definitely wasn't the right thing.
Kokkinakis also said he's had sleepless nights following Kyrgios' comment, and it also led to a heated on-court argument during a match with American player Ryan Harrison.
Harrison said of Kokkinakis,
He’s 19, if he wants to get into it, I will bury him. Wawrinka should’ve decked Kyrgios, and I should deck that kid.
It almost came to blows at the end of the match after a series of on-court slurs from Harrison including sarcastically saying "your crew is really cool" to Kokkinakis.
Kokkinakis has described the whole incident as "a circus", and called for Harrison to be fined for on-court sledging, just as Kyrgios was.
The controversy shows no sign of dying down however, and even more interestingly, Kyrgios and Kokkinakis are within one win each of a tantalising second-round encounter at the Cincinati Masters.
