Nick Kyrgios’ behavior on the court has drawn a lot of criticism from people in the tennis world, but Russian Dmytro Tursunov has come to the Australian’s defense.

Nick Kyrgios, a unique character in tennis “Not yet neutralized”

Tursunov, one of the most famous WTA coaches, believes that Nika is a necessary character for tennis. Emma Reducanu’s former coach (he now coaches Belinda Bencic) explained that the Wimbledon finalist is not afraid to show her true personality, as is the case with most players on the ATP circuit.

“Nick Kyrgios fills every arena he plays in because he has a very strong personality and he hasn’t been neutralized enough yet. On the other hand, there are all those players who are afraid to show their true personality.

At the moment, tennis is trying to remove the emotion that is felt in this sport, players are afraid to show themselves, to say in front of the microphone what they really think, because they know that in this day and age everything you say can be distorted.

For example, if you come to a press conference and say, “I think I played very well today,” I’m sure a lot of people will think you’re arrogant or putting your opponent down. Because of these things, the players began to feel that fear of expressing themselves, the fear of being themselves in front of people.

Therefore, Kyrgios fills absolutely every arena in which he plays, because he has not yet been neutralized as much as others. Fined, yes, but not much, so he doesn’t care. He has too strong a personality.

Where’s the problem with a player raising a finger in the middle of a match? Sure, it looks ugly and I’m sure it gets booed right away, but you got the whole audience emotionally involved. You make them hate someone, feel something, instead of just sitting and doing nothing, not even being able to score a puck in the stands or open a bag of chips” – Dmytro Tursunovon Craig Shapiro’s podcast.

Who is Dmytro Tursunov?

Formerly ranked 20th in the ATP ranking (won 7 career titles), Tursunov (40 years old) currently coaches Elena Vesnina (December 2017 – March 2018), Aryna Sabalenko (July 2018 – December 2019 and February – August 2020). ), Anette Kontaveit (August 2021 – June 2022) and Emma Raducanu (July 2022 – October 2022) and Belinda Bencic (October 2022 – present).

The Russian has won 13 WTA titles with athletes he has coached so far: New Haven, Wuhan (2018), Shenzhen, Wuhan, Elite Trophy (2020), Doha (2021) with Aryna Sabalenko, Cleveland, Ostrava, Moscow, Cluj- Napoka (2021) and st. Petersburg (2022) with Anette Kontaveit, followed by Adelaide 2 and Abu Dhabi (2023) with Belinda Bencic.