Australian Tennis star, Nicholas Hilmy Kyrgios has admitted that he intended to hit Spain’s Rafael Nadal with a shot during their thrilling second round match at the ongoing Wimbledon Open on Thursday.

In a fiery press conference, the 24-year-old Kyrgios said he purposely aimed a shot at Nadal and insisted that he had no need to apologize to the Spaniard despite blasting the ball at him at one point in the match.

“Why would I apologize? I won the point. I was going for him. I wanted to hit him. Kyrgios, ranked 43rd in the world said after his four-set second-round defeat.

“The dude has got how many Slams, how much money in the bank account? I think he can take a ball to the chest,” he added. 

The incident was only one flash point in the stormy 6-3 3-6 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-3) win for two-time champion, Nadal.

Prior to the encounter, the pair had met on Centre Court five years ago when a 19-year-old Kyrgios, then ranked 144th in the world pulled off a shock four-set victory over the then world number one.

Before Thursday’s encounter, their head-to-head record stood at three wins apiece, with Kyrgios winning a testy encounter in Acapulco in February.

In the wake of that win, Kyrgios had described Nadal as ‘super salty’ in defeat and admitted earlier in the championships that the pair would not be sharing a drink any time soon.

During the first half of the match, Kyrgios repeatedly argued with umpire, Damien Dumusois, mainly about the time that Nadal was taking between points.