BECKER: “Thanks to tennis legends, Kyrgios can stop playing and earn money”

Six-time Grand Slam champion Boris Becker He advised Nick Kyrgios to “respect the past” after the Australian star said today’s stars are far superior to the great sports stars of the past.

“Has Nick been talking a lot about tennis lately? Why is he talking about a sport he openly hates?

Fact check: Nick has never won a major championship as a player or coach… so where does that entitlement come from?

Everyone can think what they want. You have to respect the past and say loudly “thank you” that these former professionals exist, because without them there would be no tennis tour.

Let me start with Australia. Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, Ken Roach are the gladiators of the Australian tennis scene. Then I have to mention Patrick Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt. They were all number one, they had won Grand Slam tournaments.

I take the generation thing even further and say: ’70s, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, then Ivan Lendl. They popularized this sport and attracted viewers to television screens. You can see the result today. Never before has there been so much prize money, never before has there been as much publicity as there is today. And all this thanks to legends.

I played a little bit in the 80s, but Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander were there. In the 90s, there were Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. Thanks to all these players, Nick Kyrgios can’t play tennis at all this year and is still making a living from tennis,” Becker said.