Nick Kyrgios is often vocal with what he thinks about players and rules in tennis.
Kyrgios keeps having injury setbacks, and has not played a singles match since March at the Miami Open.
His most recent appearance on the matchcourt in doubles did not go to plan either, with Kyrgios losing in under an hour with Gael Monfils.
Although Kyrgios’ recent experience on the court has not gone so well, he does now appear to have changed his mind about a player he once criticised.
Photo by Frey/TPN/Getty ImagesNick Kyrgios says he thinks Casper Ruud is the smartest tennis player
As part of the Washington Open’s media day, players including Kyrgios, Emma Raducanu and Jessica Pegula were asked who they think is the smartest on tour.
Both Ben Shelton and Emma Navarro agreed that Pegula was their smartest player on tour, while she actually picked another American in Australian Open champion Madison Keys.
World number one and Wimbledon champion Jannik Sinner was selected by Lorenzo Musetti and Daniil Medvedev.
Medvedev, himself, was selected by compatriot Andrey Rublev, while Holger Rune picked 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, and Elena Rybakina chose Barbora Krejcikova.
Hailey Baptiste played doubles with Venus Williams at the Washington Open this year, but revealed that she thought Serena Williams was the smartest player.
Raducanu also chose a retired player and picked one of the pioneers of the WTA Tour in Billie Jean King.
When it came to Kyrgios’ selection, he chose Casper Ruud and suggested that he thought the Norwegian appears to have his life together.
“I’m gonna go Casper Ruud,” said Kyrgios. “I feel like he’s very smart he’s got his stuff sorted.”
While Kyrgios and Ruud appear to be on good terms now, that has not always been the case.
Why did Nick Kyrgios call Casper Ruud boring?
At the Italian Open in 2019, Kyrgios was defaulted in a match against Ruud for throwing a chair onto the court.
This ignited a feud between the pair, with Ruud calling Kyrgios an ‘idiot’ in an interview with Tennisportalen after he had been criticised for celebrating the default win.
Kyrgios did not take too kindly to these comments and called Ruud boring in a rant on X (formerly known as Twitter).
He wrote at the time, “Hey @CasperRuud98 next time you have something to say, I would appreciate you say it to my face, I’m sure you wouldn’t run your mouth so much after that. Until then I will continue to rather watch paint dry then watch you play tennis, boring **.
“But again, I also understand why you have to keep my name in your mouth, because people don’t even realise that you play tennis (laughing face emoji) Goodluck in Milan champ x.”
But again, I also understand why you have to keep my name in your mouth, because people dont even realise that you play tennis 😂 goodluck in Milan champ x
— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) October 24, 2019
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Kyrgios continued his criticism of three-time Grand Slam finalist Ruud for a few more years after this, but it appears that all is now forgotten.
At an exhibition event in December last year, Kyrgios and Ruud actually played doubles together and were joking about any previous fallout.