When Nick Kyrgios stirred the hornet's nest. And Boris Becker returned with equal force

Nick Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic. Kyrgios got to the Wimbledon Men's Final in 2022, but hasn't much played tennis this year. (Photos via X)

Everybody loves a good controversy. Especially Nick Kyrgios.

The fiery Australian tennis player, willing and eager to ruffle some feathers, ready to speak his mind and take on a fight, makes up for his on-court lack of big titles with his off-court abundance of big controversies. Kyrgios, who hasn’t played much since October 2022 due to injuries, recently dismissed former greats of the game as being not at the same level as the current crop.

“The game was so slow back then,” he told The Athletic recently. “I’ve watched Boris Becker and I’m not saying they weren’t good in their time, but to say that they would be just as good now, it’s absurd… It’s a whole different ball game.”

Not surprisingly, the winner of five Grand Slam titles in the 1980s-90s, Becker, was one of the many who took umbrage at Kyrgios’ statement. “Nick makes a lot of noise about tennis lately,” Becker wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “Why does he speak about a sport he apparently hates… fact-check Nick has never won a major championship as a player or coach (yes doubles 1) so where is any credibility coming from?...”

There was some banter between the two, besides Becker taking a dig at Only Fans, a subscription social media platform best known for featuring self-made pornography that has a deal with Kyrgios. The fight, like most internet fights, fizzled out after a bit, but Kyrgios’ brash words led to one of those inconclusive discussions that tend to happen on a loop.

“He (fellow Australian and former pro Lleyton Hewitt) made (Pete) Sampras look like sh*t. And what would (current world No.1 Novak) Djokovic do to someone like (former pro, winner of 14 majors and ex-world No.1) Sampras? It would be a clean-up. If Hewitt was doing it, Djokovic would destroy him. He would eat him alive,” Kyrgios told The Athletic.

While Kyrgios’s approach to comparing athletes across generations is far more direct, weighing former champions against contemporary ones has always been a part of tennis (and every other sport’s) discourse. Before Djokovic, who is now widely hailed as the best male tennis player ever due to his collection of 24 Grand Slam singles titles, Roger Federer was the undisputed greatest ever. Federer ‘dethroned’ Sampras, who seemed to be a more complete player compared to Bjorn Borg, who in turn seemed to have earned some cred over Rod Laver and so on.

Other sports suffer from a similar malaise. Current generation of followers would consider Lionel Messi as the world’s best footballer ever, while others might argue that he is not even the best Argentinian player ever (with Diego Maradona getting that honour). Kylian Mbappé is an exciting prospect for French football, but a generation ago, audiences were mesmerised by Zinadine Zidane, who inspired the national team to the 1998 World Cup. Michel Platini took France to the 1984 European Championships and at one point, competed with Maradona for the world’s-best honours.

Comparisons across generations are futile because factors other than athletes’ skills are at play. In tennis, racquets, balls and playing surfaces have changed over the years. Rules in football have evolved over the years, which means a Messi today gets far gentler treatment from opposing defenders than Maradona did. Diets and training methods have become more scientific—where John McEnroe apparently could not touch his toes during his playing days in the early 1980s, Djokovic practically does a split every time he stretches to reach the ball.

Becker finally brought an end to a largely meaningless discussion, which had no chance of a tangible conclusion, by saying, “I wish Nick a speedy full recovery and can’t wait to see him back on a tennis court,” the German posted. “He is an exciting player when he is fit! He has got a Grand Slam in his bag but you have to do the talking on the court…good luck.”

Kyrgios, who has played just one match in 2023 after ligament damage to his wrist required surgery in October, is at age 28 running out of time, assuming he returns from the long layoff as powerful a player as he was before. His breakthrough year in 2022 got him a Wimbledon final, and a few quarterfinals and semifinals. But early on in 2023, he had a knee injury followed by a wrist ailment, which have kept him out for all of the year. He is already seeking alternate career options, having done some commentary for The Tennis Channel, which also motivated some dislike for older members of the fraternity.

“Sometimes it’s hard to watch these old heads kind of break down the game all the time for new fans,” he told The Athletic. “It’s like some of the stuff they say doesn’t make sense. Jim Courier is really good, the way he articulates things, but some of these other people, I’m just like, ‘What are you talking about?’. Like, ‘How do you know?’”

As one of the game’s known disrupters and fire starters, few people would take Kyrgios’ comments seriously (except perhaps Becker). Kyrgios is as unfiltered as they come, which contributes to his popularity. But splitting hairs over comparing past and present players leads to nothingness.