Feb 24th, 2020

Feb 24th, 2020

Nick Kyrgios has taken to social media to criticise the timing of some clay court tournaments during the ATP Tour season.

The Aussie tennis star says having events played on the red dirt during the hard court season is damaging to the future of tennis.

Kyrgios also took issue with Gianluca Mager's jump in the world rankings from 128th to 77th after the Italian reached the final of the Rio Open on Sunday.

"If you think having all these clay court tournaments whilst we are in the midst of the hard court season is good for the sport and the future of tennis continue to argue," he responded to a post by a Twitter user.

Nick Kyrgios (Getty)

Mager - who had to qualify to get into the main draw of the ATP 500 event in Rio and beat top seed Dominic Thiem in the quarter-finals-finals - is now ranked above the likes of Australian young gun Alexei Popyrin, Frances Tiafoe and Vasek Pospisil.

"How many wins on hard court and grass court has he had?" Kyrgios asked about Mager.

Kyrgios insisted he was not taking aim at fellow players but rather the going after the tournaments rather than individuals.

"I'm not going at anyone," Kyrgios replied to a Twitter user's subsequent defence of Mager.

Kyrgios back into top 20

"I'm going at these tournaments."

The 24-year-old also retweeted a post that described the Rio Open and the Chile Open as 'a f***ing joke', adding his own caption which read 'Factsssss'.

Kyrgios, who had withdrawn from his past two scheduled events in New York and Delray Beach due to injury, is in Acapulco, Mexico, and due to begin the defence of his ATP 500 title against Ugo Humbert on Wednesday.

©AAP2020