Kyrgios labelled Verdasco as 'the saltiest dude' in Twitter spat
Wednesday 28 March 2018 00:30, UK
Fernando Verdasco and Nick Kyrgios were involved in a war of words on Twitter following the Spaniard's controversial victory against Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Miami Open.
Verdasco dug deep to earn a tough three-set win over Australian qualifier Kokkinakis on Monday, who then got involved in a Twitter spat with Kyrgios, who had expressed his desire for the Spaniard to lose his third-round match.
The bad feeling continued on social media when Kyrgios labelled Verdasco as 'the saltiest dude' who must be frustrated at his past success against Aussies. The 34-year-old had lost his last six matches against Australian opposition.
The thing with Verdasco is that he's 34-years of age and should be experienced enough. He should have left it along and let all the handbags go their way and get on with his tennis because it's not helping him.
Kyrgios then deleted that tweet, but Verdasco responded by saying "when you have the courage to put a tweet insulting another player you need to have the same to don't delete it".
Kyrgios hit back with another tweet in which he said: "I would honestly have told it to Fernando's face, the reason I deleted my previous tweet was because I didn't want to cause unwanted attention, but I'm just gonna leave this here. Thanks for blocking me, I'm sure that took a lot of courage x".
It all resulted after Verdasco and Kokkinakis were involved in a heated exchange during a third-set change of ends, which spiralled after the former questioned the conduct of his opponent's father in the crowd. A row ensued, after which the match continued and concluded with a frosty handshake.
Another twist in this tale was Verdasco's latest tweet which said "Just for all of you guys to know. It was NOT Thanasi's dad."
Thanasi Kokkinakis Sr was seen on the left of the screen with his coach Ben Mathias on the right and during the argument Verdasco said it was the man in the hat who was talking. But both men had hats on.
The situation had clearly affected the experienced Verdasco, who went down to a heavy 6-0 6-3 defeat at the hands of fellow Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta in their fourth-round match on Tuesday.
You can watch more ATP Masters 1000 action from the Miami Open when we continue our coverage on Wednesday from 8pm on Sky Sports Arena and Sky Sports Main Event.
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