Nick Kyrgios complains of marijuana smell during US Open second round win over Marin Cilic at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Tuesday morning, June 4, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
It’s not quite a full-on “dude, you smell like weed” situation, but Nick Kyrgios does smell like marijuana… for the next five minutes.
The 22-year-old Australian won his first four Masters Series events during 2014 and 2015, including a major. He’s won two straight Grand Slam titles and four straight Australian Open titles.
Kyrgios had trouble focusing in his first-round victory at the US Open last week, saying that he would have to “look away from it” to focus fully on the game.
He would later joke: “It was not an issue of concentration for me, like someone saying that I’m distracted and that I’m going to look at the match.”
Kyrgios said he didn’t smell anything during his first-round victory over Cilic at night at Arthur Ashe Stadium. He would later smell it again during the first-set tie break.
The US Open is only the ninth Grand Slam event in the US, where players are not allowed to smoke marijuana.
But a new rule is set to come into effect Aug. 1 that allows an automatic ban for any first-time offenders who use marijuana in any form of the drug and in any setting on any day. They may only apply to the first offense.
The new rule comes after the US Tennis Association and USTA sanctioned anti-drug campaign in 2014, which began in the wake of Roger Federer’s positive test for marijuana.
