The BBC’s plans to hire Nick Kyrgios as a Wimbledon pundit this summer have sparked outrage among senior MPs and women’s activists.
Caroline Nokes, chair of the Women and Equality Committee, said the company should “shame on its head” for agreeing to the terms after admitting to assaulting an ex-girlfriend last year.
Jamie Klingler, co-founder of Reclaim These Streets, also expressed his displeasure with the pundit job, as Kyrgios also retweeted social media posts from misogynist Andrew Tate.
Kyrgios admitted assaulting an ex-girlfriend in February last year, but a magistrate in Canberra, Australia, called the incident “a single act of stupidity or frustration” in sparing him a criminal record.
However, BBC executives appear to have overlooked the controversy as he will join the Wimbledon team as a pundit unless he defies expectations and regains match fitness.
“The BBC should be ashamed of this appointment,” Ms Nokes, a senior Tory, told Telegraph Sport. “It is a shame and shows the utter contempt our national broadcaster has for women. They are not content with consistently underpaying their own female staff and excluding women once they reach a certain age. They are now bringing a man to Wimbledon who has admitted to assaulting a woman.”
Ms Klingler added: “It’s amazing how quickly we are willing to reject violence against women, as long as the man committing the violence is good at hitting a ball or a musical note.”
Kyrgios, the most controversial player of the past decade, has played just one match in the past 18 months due to various physical problems, particularly with his knee and wrist.
Despite a recent podcast appearance in which he said he will be “back on court soon… there is still fire in the belly”, Kyrgios would need an extended period of gym work and specific tennis training to be ready for the tour.
Still just 29, Kyrgios started his career as a commentator at the ATP Finals in Turin late last year, before working for ESPN at the Australian Open in January. He has impressed many with his insight and fluency behind the microphone, but he has divided opinion like few others throughout his playing career. He could be rude, as when he infamously told Stan Wawrinka that “Kokkinakis hit your girlfriend,” or when he threw a chair onto the field during a tantrum.
Yet he could also play sublime tennis, especially at Wimbledon, where he reached the final in 2022 before losing to Novak Djokovic in four sets.
Owner of the loosest and most explosive serve in the game, Kyrgios’ best results have come on the grass since he defeated Rafael Nadal on Center Court in 2013, when he was just 18.
However, that victory also turned out to have a downside. It made Kyrgios a celebrity in Australia and created expectations that he struggled to meet. By 2019, his mental health had reached such a low point that he contemplated suicide. “I drank, I abused drugs, I hated the kind of person I was,” Kyrgios told the Netflix documentary series Break Point.
After being spared an assault conviction last year, he issued a statement saying he was grateful to the court for dismissing the charges.
“I felt out of place when this happened and I responded to a difficult situation in a way that I deeply regret,” he said. “I know it wasn’t okay and I am truly sorry for the pain I caused.”
He had pushed Chiara Passari to the pavement during an argument in Canberra in 2021, the court heard.
The BBC previously replaced John Inverdale as host of the Wimbledon highlights show, two years after he was accused of making sexist comments about women’s champion Marion Bartoli.
The BBC later apologized for the ‘insensitive’ comments and Inverdale stayed on as a commentator until his departure last year.
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