Kyrgios bites back at Roger Rasheed

In a US Open plagued by retirements and walkovers (see Novak Djokovic's opponents), no one got more slack for retiring than Nick Kyrgios. The Australian had to stop in the third round with a hip injury.

First, John McEnroe (commentating during Kyrgios' 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, ret. loss to Illya Marchenko) had some choice words for the 21-year-old.

"Nick Kyrgios, if you don’t want to be a professional tennis player, do something else," McEnroe said on ESPN. "He's hurt because he's not training enough."

Then Australian coach and former player Roger Rasheed (who's worked with the likes of Lleyton Hewitt, Gael Monfils and Grigor Dimitrov) said the problem could have been avoided if Kyrgios had a team (or coach) around to advise him to lessen his workload by pulling out of doubles.

While the world No. 16 was OK with McEnroe's criticism, he was having none of it from Rasheed.

Rasheed reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 192 in 1992.

Hewitt stepped up to defend his countryman, saying Kyrgios could have pulled out much earlier, but was the big name on show court. “For him to get criticized like that, he would be pretty frustrated," Hewitt said.

The Australian Davis Cup will be hoping Kyrgios recovers quickly enough to play the September 17-18 tie against Slovakia.

Former world No. 4 James Blake also sided with Kyrgios.