Nick Kyrgios is through to his first grand slam final after Spaniard Rafael Nadal withdrew from Wimbledon with injury.

If Kyrgios wins he will be the first Australian men’s singles champion at Wimbledon since Lleyton Hewitt raised the trophy 20 years ago in 2002.

Columnist Kate Halfpenny has had it with Kyrgios’ antics. She was so peeved that she even entertained the idea of revoking passport.

Halfpenny’s opinion on July 2, was headed, It’s time to kick Nick Kyrgios off the island.

She begins; “Asking for a friend: is there a way to revoke Nick Kyrgios’ Australian passport and kick him off the island, so we can stop being linked to this grub?”

Kyrgios’ father is a Greek self-employed house painter, (one hopes his son’s earnings have limited his need to work), and his mother is a computer engineer, and a member of a Malay Royal family. The migrants’ son has done brilliantly.

Halfpenny has been branded ‘racist’ by prominent journalists. She may not be racist, and this could have been a very poor attempt at a joke, it does feel like racism though.

Journalist Sarah Dingle wrote “Nick Kyrgios was born here. What exactly are you suggesting #racism”.

The epithet “grub”, and the ‘joke’ about revoking Kyrgios’ citizenship, is too close to the Australian jingoism prevalent in the early 1900s, after the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act, or ‘White Australia Policy.

A policy that restricted, Greeks, Southern Italians, Jews, Turks, South Asians, and Chinese from entering Australia. We were not seen as worthy in the architecture of whiteness, and we were not trusted.

Kyrgios is mercurial, he can be nasty, he is often moody, and prone to outbursts .

He was fined $10,000USD for spitting in the direction of fans during his win over Paul Jubb, before copping a $4500 fine for obscenity in a spiteful clash against Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Not nice, but  worth of getting hypothetically deported?

Kyrgios is a great tennis player, one of the best in Australia since the early 2000s. But, he doesn’t tug the forelock, he is not the ‘good ethnic boy,’ – the grateful, supine, nice guy.

My headmaster, in front of my mother (who was brought in due to my misbehaviour) said, “You’re a good Greek boy, stop messing around with those others.” The ‘others’ were bad ethnic boys. That was 1978 not 2022.

Halfpenny also opined on the AFL Bulldog’s Bailey Smith’s little bag of white powder, but there was no call to cancel his citizenship.

Kyrgios can be abusive, (towards umpires) and (racist) fans.  However that is not the issue here. But he does know racism, we all do.

The dark-skinned Greek Malay Australian grew up in Canberra, and recently he copped racism from tennis fans.

For many in the media he is a trope – a loud, dark, and arrogant Greek male, (they miss the Malay usually.) Hellenophobia, ελληνοφοβία, is not new it was ramped up in the early 20th Century in Australia, the US and Canada with anti Greek riots, and the formation of the second iteration of the KKK in the US.

It doesn’t take much for it to be inflamed. During the Greek Financial Crisis 2010 – 2016, there was a constant outpouring of comments from my peers (then in government), about ‘lazy Greeks,’ and ‘Greeks not paying taxes.’ Do we ever get used to it?

Now, Kyrgios faces allegations of violence by his ex-girlfriend, who said he pushed her during an argument in a lockdown hotel. The trope of the dangerous, lascivious, misogynistic and unpredictable ‘Greek man’.  The binary to the good Greek boy.

The charges will be heard in a Canberra court in early August. If Kyrgios is guilty of criminal behaviour, he will face the consequences as an Australian citizen and I doubt the court will call for the revocation of his passport.

Another Kyrgios past girlfriend, Australian tennis player, Ajla Tomljanovic, when asked by the media about those charges said, “I’m definitely against domestic violence. I hope it gets resolved. But I haven’t had that experience with him [Kyrgios].”

Tennis stopped being the Anglo-French sport of the middle and upper classes in the 1970s. Ilie Nastase the Romanian, was the first to break the mould, later, John McEnroe was crowned the king brat of tennis, our own Lleyton Hewitt was not exempt from bad behaviour. I wonder who ever called for the revocation of Hewitt’s passport?

Stefanos Tsitsipas, (the other Greek), also poorly behaved is fair in complexion, not a rap loving, dark skinned Kyrgios. I hope Kyrgios goes far and maintains his rage against racism.

He could chill on the theatrics, a bit.