Nick Kyrgios was caught on video this week appearing to back unvaccinated kids on court and says now he’s being misunderstood and that he’s actually become an unwitting spokesman for the anti-vaccination movement.
Recently Kyrgios was asked about his support for the anti-vaccination movement and said that kids should be “self-prescribing medicine” — a rare view in tennis circles, where parents routinely hand their children out for shots — and said that they should just be allowed to decide for themselves.
The Tennis website wrote an article about the comments at the end of April, saying they were “new and left-field views from a figure that was expected to be on the side of the pro-vaccine world,” and that he and his management “conflated strong support for his fans and self-prescribing medicine with vaccination.”
But Kyrgios later clarified that he was making a point about the doctor that his own coach uses, not about vaccine policy. Kyrgios said he was merely pointing out that the doctor he sees is not fully vaccinated and that he should be given the chance to make an informed decision about where he sees himself on the vaccination spectrum.
“If you’re picking up a good doctor that’s properly using [medication], I’d rather go to someone that’s going to get me the best medicines to make me feel good and make me want to play. I don’t think that people need to be kicked off the court for wanting to feel good and just playing,” Kyrgios said.