Tsitsipas has now had plenty of time to reflect on that heated match and believes it was one of his lowest moments on the tennis court. While he and Kyrgios have somewhat patched things up, the 27-year-old has now admitted to intentionally aiming a ball at his rival’s face. And even though he lost the match, he said the harsh tactics worked.

“The Kyrgios match I’m definitely not proud of. It’s probably the lowest I’ve shown myself on the tennis court. I really lost it that day,” Tsitsipas told The Times, branding his reaction a “meltdown”.

He added: “I felt really disrespected. I felt like someone was constantly toying with me, trying to murmur stuff on the changeover and throw their towel on my box, and kept doing it on purpose.

“I was feeling really bad because I got sick [a few days before] and my breathing was suffering, so all that kind of added to the frustration, and I did some stupid things that I don’t normally do on the court. He got the worst out of me.”

One of those things was to aim a return directly at Kyrgios, throwing him off his game. But Tsitsipas was worried that would come back to bite him when he teamed up with the Wimbledon runner-up in an exhibition doubles match at the Diriyah Tennis Cup exhibition in Saudi Arabia a few months later.

Tsitsipas added: “I remember going to the net when he served at the start of the match and being like, ‘F***, I hope he doesn’t hit me,’ because I won’t lie to you, I was so frustrated at one point with all the little things Nick was doing in the match [at Wimbledon] that when he drop-shotted me, I aimed [the return] at his face. That’s how mad I was. Guess what? He served three double faults in a row.”

Kyrgios and Tsitsipas faced each other five times in their careers, and the Australian leads their head-to-head 4-1. That Wimbledon meeting remains their most recent, and Kyrgios had also beaten the former No. 3 a couple of weeks earlier in Halle.

Both men have tumbled down the rankings in recent years due to injury problems. Kyrgios was sidelined from the end of 2022 until the beginning of 2025, save for one match in Stuttgart in 2023, as he needed surgeries for knee and wrist issues. The Aussie took another injury hiatus and did not play an official match from the 2025 Miami Open until the 2026 Brisbane International. He’s not competed since. Meanwhile, Tsitsipas’ 2025 season was wrecked by a back injury, and he dropped outside of the world’s top 50 earlier this year. He now sits at No. 49 in the world, while Kyrgios is unranked due to his inactivity.