The
director of the
Miami Open,
James Blake, acknowledged that he was confronted by
a "very top player" in 2018 after scheduling
Nick Kyrgios on the
center court when the tournament was held in Key Biscayne.
The former
world No. 4 is serving as the tournament director for the sixth time this year
and shared an interesting anecdote about his first year as director. The
American joined the "Served with Andy Roddick" podcast and revealed
that a significant star criticized him in the locker room.
Roddick
asked Blake to recall any player who lost control due to the schedule, and the
current Miami Open director mentioned a situation he experienced in his first
year at the helm: Principio del
formulario
“We’ll keep
it anonymous, I’ll name one name. It was my first year so 2018, we’re still at
Crandon Park and Nick Kyrgios [is a] huge story as he still is always,”
“We’ve got
him on Stadium and another player that was far more accomplished - not a Grand
Slam champion but a Masters 1000 champion - a very, very top player. And he was
on Grandstand.”
“He was
pretty unhappy about that and so he had someone from his team come and say
‘Hey, so and so is really upset and he wants to talk to you.’ So I go to the
locker room and he’s like, ‘What is this BS? He hasn’t accomplished this. Look
at my resume and look at his resume.’”
“I was like, ‘Look, we
put him out on one of the outside courts for doubles and we actually had a
security risk because we had so many people crushing to get there. The only
option is we’ve got to put him on stadium. It’s just such a big story we’ve got
to do it. I’m really, really sorry,” Blake said. “He was p***ed but he got over
it,” the former world No. 4 concluded.