'Threats can get scary': Nick Kyrgios's family rises above abuse

It's a light-hearted response from Nick Kyrgios's brother Christos on what is a serious and scary subject.

But both he and the family are determined not to let anonymous "cowards" hiding behind their keyboards win.

That aside, Christos admits they were human and the torrent of abuse, which includes regular death threats for the whole Kyrgios family, does affect them.

But they're determined to rise above the "sad" people who send these messages.

In the fallout from Kyrgios's angry exit in the semi-finals at Houston, where he again had a run-in with an umpire, he took to social media to reveal the vile posts he'd received from trolls.

One said: "You are f---ing dead, watch your back."

While another: "F--- you you piece of shit. Quit tennis."

He's also received threats towards his mother Nill.

"We've got a really big guard dog in little Quincy that will sort out anyone who wants to come around," Christos joked.

"Going through this journey and being in the limelight you always get people that get too excited and take the hate and dislike a bit too seriously.

"We're only people as well, so of course threats can get scary. I think you lose when you give in to people like that and you hide away and let them affect you.

"All you do is take it in your stride, be the best you can each day, try to inspire people and keep moving forward."

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Christos said it wasn't just them - all ATP and WTA players had to deal with it throughout their careers.

Kyrgios was back in Canberra after a series of tournaments in the USA.

He was skipping the French Open, with his next focus a series of tournaments in the lead-up to and including Wimbledon.

In the meantime, he'll be based in Canberra doing rehab on several niggling injuries before preparing for his grass-court campaign.

While those that sent the abuse were "cowards", Christos said that still didn't make it any nicer to receive.

He said the problem was there was no accountability on social media, where it was hard to identify culprits and trolls could just open different fake accounts and carry on.

"It's so easy to create an anonymous profile, say what you want and hide behind it or delete it," Christos said.

"I hope these people's lives aren't that unfulfilling and that sad that's the type of stuff that brings them joy and gives them something to do each day - what a terrible way to live a life."