Dawn Fraser tells Kyrgios and Tomic to 'go back where their parents came from'

Former Olympic swimming champion says Australian tennis stars should set a better example, and if they don’t like it ‘we don’t need them here in this country’

Nick Kyrgios has called Australian swimming legend Dawn Fraser “a blatant racist” after she launched an extraordinary attack on the tennis star in the wake of his heated Wimbledon round-of-16 defeat to Richard Gasquet.

Fraser’s initially benign comments to Channel Nine’s Today program about the 20-year-old’s bizarre second-set performance escalated into a series of remarks aimed at the heritage of Kyrgios and compatriot Bernard Tomic.

Responding to a question from host Karl Stefanovic about Kyrgios’s behaviour at Wimbledon and Tomic’s attack on Tennis Australia, which led to him being dumped from the Davis Cup team, Fraser said: “They should be setting a better example for the younger generation of this country, a great country of ours.

“If they don’t like it, go back to where their fathers or their parents came from. We don’t need them here in this country if they act like that.”

Stefanovic glossed over the comments, but Kyrgios posted on his Facebook page after the interview in response to Fraser.

“Throwing a racket, brat. Debating the rules, disrespectful. Frustrated when competing, spoilt. Showing emotion, arrogant. Blatant racist, Australian legend,” he wrote.

His mother, Nill Kyrgios, said on Twitter that Fraser’s attack was “out of line”.

Kyrgios was born in Canberra. His father Giorgios hails from Greece and Nill Kyrgios was born in Malaysia.

Tomic is German-born, with a Croatian father and Bosnian mother. The family migrated to the Gold Coast when Tomic was three.

Fraser later stood by her comments and firmly denied they were racist.

“I’m not a racist person, if you take it that way then I’m sorry that you take it that way, but I’m not racist at all,” she told Fairfax Media.

“I said, ‘If they don’t want to be Australians then maybe they should go back to the country where their parents come from’. That’s not being racist.

“I can see it being interpreted that way ... but it wasn’t intended that way. I said they were not good Australians by behaving the way they are on court. Do you think they are?”

It is not the first time Fraser has made controversial remarks about race. In 1997 she said she was sympathetic to the cause of Pauline Hanson and considered standing for Hanson’s rightwing One Nation party in the 1998 election. At the time she said of refugees: “We’ve got a lot of problems in our own country and we should be looking at our own first, before looking overseas.”

Kyrgios had earlier denied “tanking” against Gasquet and pushed back at questions over his on-court behaviour in his post-match press conference. Kyrgios faced a potential $US20,000 (A$27,000) fine under grand slam “best effort” rules, but fended off accusations that he had stopped trying.

“Of course I tried,” he said. “There was a lot of ups and downs. It was a tough, tough time, especially when he’s not missing any balls.

“I’m getting frustrated myself. I feel as if I’m playing not how I should be playing. I’m angry at myself.”

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