Nick Kyrgios has courted more considerable controversy after being disqualified from his second-round match at the Italian Open.
After receiving a game penalty in the third set of his meeting with Norway's Casper Ruud on Thursday, the hot-headed Australian crashed his racket to the ground in frustration before kicking a water bottle and hurling a chair on to the clay court at Foro Italico in Rome.
Kyrgios, who trailed 3-6, 7-6, 1-2 at the time of the incident and had just seen his serve broken, packed up his equipment and was defaulted by the match umpire.
The 24-year-old later took to Twitter to seemingly poke fun at a video of Ruud's triumphant post-match celebration.
Kyrgios' latest on-court controversy came on the same day that he made headlines for a podcast interview in which he took aim at both Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
He claimed he felt Djokovic had a "sick obsession with wanting to be liked" and labelled the world No1's post-match celebration as "cringeworthy".
Kyrgios also described Nadal - who claimed his opponent lacked respect after beating him in Acapulco in February - as "super salty" and labelled the Spaniard's uncle and long-time coach Toni an "idiot".
