Column: Official’s discussion with Nick Kyrgios doesn’t sit well with those who saw umpire leave chair

Nick Kyrgios, free spirit that he is, doesn’t have a coach. Whether the 23-year-old Australian received illegal coaching aid from an unlikely source — the chair umpire assigned to his second-round U.S. Open match against Pierre-Hugues Herbert — became a point of contention Thursday. It also brought another dash of chaos to a tournament that has had to make up a heat-related rule on the fly and apologize to a female player who was charged with an unwarranted code violation for turning her shirt around on the court.

At some point the players, not the rule-makers and officials, will be the main focus. Or so we can hope.

Kyrgios has been blessed with mesmerizing talent. He also has a maddening tendency to lose interest in matches, which has brought him fines and suspensions. He seemed disconnected during the early stages against Herbert on Thursday, and after double-faulting to give Herbert the first set and losing the first three games of the second, he seemed physically and mentally spent. Bored fans were leaving Court 17.

Kyrgios seemed eager to follow them.

That’s when chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani took the unusual step of descending from his chair and approaching Kyrgios. The audio of their conversation isn’t clear, but Lahyani can be heard saying, “I’m trying to help you,” at least twice while making pleading arm gestures.

Kyrgios said it wasn’t a pep talk. “He said he liked me. I’m not sure if that was encouragement,” Kyrgios said. “He just said that it’s not a good look.”

Kyrgios said Lahyani didn’t help him. Herbert wasn’t sure that was true after Kyrgios came back to pull out a 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-0 victory and set up a third-round encounter with Roger Federer.

“I just can tell you from that point Nick was playing much better,” Herbert said at a post-match news conference, though he acknowledged he should have closed out the second set after going up a break and up 5-2. “I don’t think he has to go down and take the position of a coach, like you see on the [women’s] tour.”

Herbert later watched video of Lahyani talking to Kyrgios and issued a statement via Twitter in which he absolved Kyrgios of blame.

“I am angry against the umpire,” Herbert said. “He should not go down off his chair and try to reason with Nick. Did this action affect the game? We will never know.”

U.S. Open tournament referee Brian Earley issued a statement saying Lahyani had vacated his chair to check on Kyrgios’ medical status “because of the noise level in the stadium during the changeover to make sure he could communicate effectively with Kyrgios.”

Lahyani told Kyrgios he could get medical help but also that, “if his seeming lack of interest in the match continued, that as the chair umpire, he would need to take action.”

The statement also said Kyrgios received treatment from a physiotherapist, yet Kyrgios said he merely got some salt packets because he felt ill in the oppressive heat.

That explanation didn’t satisfy Herbert. He said the statement from the U.S. Tennis Assn. and tournament organizers “is clearly taking us for fools in making us believe that the umpire didn’t absolutely overstep his duties.”

Federer, who earned his place in the third round with a 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Benoit Paire, was asked if he expected the umpire to come down to talk to Kyrgios should the Australian give less than an all-out effort during their match Saturday.

“That won’t happen,” Federer said emphatically, and given his status as a 20-time Grand Slam winner and face of the sport, that’s a good bet.

“It’s not the umpire’s role to go down from the chair,” Federer said. “But I get what he was trying to do. [Kyrgios] behaves the way he behaves. You as an umpire take a decision on the chair, do you like it or don’t you like it. But you don’t go and speak like that, in my opinion.

“I don’t know what he said. I don’t care what he said. It was not just about, ‘How are you feeling? Oh, I’m not feeling so well.’ Go back up to the chair. He was there for too long. It’s a conversation. Conversations can change your mind-set. It can be a physio, a doctor, an umpire, for that matter. That’s why it won’t happen again. I think everybody knows that.”

Federer holds a 2-1 career lead over Kyrgios in addition to a walkover that occurred when Kyrgios, citing a stomach ailment, withdrew at the last minute from their scheduled quarterfinal at Indian Wells in 2017.

“I do believe I can win,” Kyrgios said.

His bravado didn’t appear to have been coached.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

Follow Helene Elliott on Twitter @helenenothelen