Why Nick Kyrgios, Frances Tiafoe belong in tennis 'naughty' list for 2024: John Isner, Jack Sock & others explain
Nick Kyrgios and Frances Tiafoe were among the players named in the 2024 'naughty list' by John Isner, Jack Sock, Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey. The four American former ATP stars revealed their picks on a recent episode of the Nothing Major podcast, which they co-host.
Sam Querrey named the controversial Nick Kyrgios as his pick and also assessed the Australian's prospects in the 2025 season. Kyrgios recently featured as a guest on the podcast as well.
"Naughty list. I'm going our guest from last week, Nick Kyrgios. He's already controversial. I feel like this next year he's going to play limited events and even just try to be like more controversial with the way he acts and things he says and things he does and Santa is bringing him some coal," Querrey said.
Meanwhile, Steve Johnson went with Frances Tiafoe, citing the latter's expletive-laden rant at a chair umpire at the 2024 Rolex Shanghai Masters.
"I'm going to go with Frances Tiafoe, just because of one epic meltdown in Shanghai. As somebody who had a few of those epic meltdowns, I respected that. If you're to go all in, go all in on a meltdown," Johnson said.
Jack Sock picked Andrey Rublev over the Russian's repeated on-court outbursts throughout the year.
"I'm going to go Rublev. Just on court, gosh, he seems he's got some demons going on. He self-inflicts pain with his racket. So yeah, don't think Santa's going to be too happy with him," Sock opined.
Last but not least, John Isner chose Daniil Medvedev.
"This guy's a mainstay on the naughty list, and he likes it. Daniil Medvedev. Bit of a villain out there. Everyone likes him though, but he plays to the crowd. He likes when the crowd boos him," Isner said.
During his appearance on the Nothing Major podcast, Nick Kyrgios had addressed a potential meeting with reigning World No. 1 Jannik Sinner at the 2025 Australian Open.
"I would just do anything to win" - Nick Kyrgios on potentially facing Jannik Sinner at Australian Open 2025
Nick Kyrgios has stirred a lot of controversy with his incessant criticism of Jannik Sinner since the Italian's doping revelation in the buildup to the 2024 US Open. Recently, the Australian told the Nothing Major podcast co-hosts that he is relishing the prospect of locking horns with Sinner at the 2025 Australian Open, which would mark Kyrgios' return to the Grand Slam stage after two injury-ravaged years.
"Well, I thought about this and I've been thinking, I've been talking about it a little bit, like if I played him (Sinner) in Australian Open, like I would get every single person in the crowd to just like get on him. Like I would just turn it into an absolute riot. Like I would lose all respect, all respect would go out the window and I would just do anything to win," Kyrgios said.
More recently, the 2022 Wimbledon Championships runner-up faced flak from fans for referring to Sinner as a "grinch."