Nick Kyrgios has laid bare where his anger at Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek’s doping rows stems from. The Australian opened up about the subject recently in a discussion with American former ATP stars Sam Querrey, Steve Johnson and Jack Sock.

Querrey, Johnson and Sock, alongside John Isner, are the co-hosts of the Nothing Major podcast. Kyrgios was the latest high-profile tennis personality to feature on the podcast as a guest, and he spoke to the Americans (Isner didn’t feature in this particular episode) about his thoughts on Sinner and Swiatek’s doping controversies that rocked the tennis world in 2024.

“Honestly, it’s nothing personal. Like, I’ve got nothing personal on Iga. I just think that it should be a level playing field for everyone and that’s what pisses me off. Because I know these guys it feels like they already have an advantage because they’re just Gods and then taking all these other performance enhancing drugs just like for me, it makes me angry because I know that me personally, I’ve never done it and I won’t ever do it,” Nick Kyrgios said.

“Then this guy is rubbing cream all over his body that gives him (referring to Jannik Sinner) some crazy aura. It’s not fair. That’s why I’m angry about it,” he added.

Nick Kyrgios also went on to opine that Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek portrayed themselves as victims in the aftermath of their respective doping revelations, which made him even angrier.

“Once you get caught you can’t act like the victim. That’s what pisses me off even more. I’m like, ‘hold on a second’.” Kyrgios said.

The 2022 Wimbledon Championships runner-up concluded by suggesting that recreational drugs should not be a problem in tennis, but players found with banned performance-enhancing substances in their bloodstreams should not go unpunished.

“Absolutely, absolutely (recreational drugs should be fine in tennis), but let’s be real, how, in our sport, can someone get punished two years for having a night out and averting someone that’s actually trying to enhance their performance? And I think it’s not even a conversation of which one’s worse in my opinion,” Kyrgios concluded.

The former ATP World No. 13 has been arguably the fiercest and most vocal critic of the punishments meted out to Sinner and Swiatek. After the Italian’s case came to the fore, Kyrgios called on the authorities to issue a lengthy ban. The Australian was also furious after Swiatek denied having any knowledge of the prohibited substance that was found in her system.

Nick Kyrgios demanded two-year ban for Jannik Sinner; expressed dismay over Iga Swiatek’s “excuse”

After it became public knowledge that Jannik Sinner had successfully appealed against a provisional suspension and later proved his innocence over his Clostebol contamination to an ITIA-appointed independent tribunal, Nick Kyrgios labeled the outcome “ridiculous”. The Australian also urged for a two-year ban on Sinner.

“Ridiculous – whether it was accidental or planned. You get tested twice with a banned (steroid) substance… you should be gone for 2 years. Your performance was enhanced. Massage cream…. Yeah nice,” Kyrgios wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Kyrgios also refused to believe Swiatek’s claim that she had no knowledge of trimetazidine (TMZ), the banned substance the Pole tested positive for.

“The excuse that we can all use is that we didn’t know. Simply didn’t know. Professionals at the highest level of sport can now just say “we didn’t know”,” Kyrgios stated sarcastically on X.

While Swiatek was let off the hook with a one-month ban and a deduction of the prize money and ranking points she earned at the 2024 Cincinnati Open, Sinner’s case is still awaiting the CAS hearing after WADA’s intervention.