After Australian star Nick Kyrgios was provisionally suspended from tennis after testing positive for cocaine, Romania’s Simona Halep appeared to take a dig at him on his Instagram story.
Halep, who received a four-year suspension after testing positive for the banned drug Roxadustat at the 2022 US Open, was mocked online by Kyrgios at that time.
“I’d imagine if I was taking similar things to be banned for 4 years, I’d have about 5 slams. Potato. I run on bananas and coke cola in 5 set battles. And my record in them speaks for itself. Maybe players should just stop taking shady s***. Look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and say yep I did it right. Not hard,” Kyrgios had said.
4 years on, Halep seemed in no mood to let Kyrgios forget his words. “Never kick someone when they’re down. Life has a strange way of changing positions. And an even stranger way of revealing the difference between an accident and a choice,” she wrote.
Halep’s suspension was reduced by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to nine months after CAS accepted her explanation of a contaminated supplement. But, she missed 1 & 1/2 years of playing.
Simona Halep’s Instagram story after Nick Kyrgios’ suspension. (Instagram)
Meanwhile on Wednesday, in a statement posted on Instagram, Kyrgios apologised to his fans, family, sponsors and those close to him. He also expressed particular regret over the example his actions could set for young supporters.
“I made a huge mistake, and I take full responsibility for it,” Kyrgios wrote.
The Australian said the past few years, during which persistent knee and wrist injuries have severely limited his career, had taken a significant toll on him mentally and physically.
“My body hasn’t been able to do what my mind expects it to do,” he wrote, adding that coming to terms with being near the end of his career had been harder than he had imagined.
“None of that excuses what I did,” Kyrgios said. He added that he would step away from social media and public life for 28 days to focus on his wellbeing.