Ben Stiller Unwittingly Gets Pulled Into Tennis Star's Spat with Fan: 'Do I Tell Him How to Act?'

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Ben Stiller got an unexpected shout-out from Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios during the athlete's match against Rafael Nadal this week.

Kyrgios, who is notoriously short-tempered on the court, quipped back at hecklers during the match at Indian Wells in California on Thursday.

"Are you good at tennis?" 26-year-old Kyrgios asked a heckler while pausing before a serve.

"No," the heckler replied back, which prompted Kyrgios to ask, "Exactly, so why are you speaking?"

After drawing laughs from the crowd, Kyrgios paused once again before his serve and pointed at Stiller.

"Do I tell him how to act? No," he said about the Meet the Fockers actor, who was seated next to his wife, Christine Taylor, in the front row.

Other videos of the moment cut to Stiller and Taylor, who appeared to be chuckling.

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The humorous moment was short-lived, however, after Kyrgios almost hit a ball kid in the face with his racket.

After Kyrgios lost to Nadal in three sets, he slammed his racket against the court, sending it careening wildly toward a ball kid who was able to dodge out of its way. Footage of the incident was posted to Twitter.

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Kyrgios seemed to brush off the near-miss in a press conference following the match, Yahoo! News reported.

"What would you like me to say about it?" he said in response to a reporter's question about whether he was aware of the racket coming dangerously close to the ball kid. "Obviously was that my intention? No. Did I throw the racket anywhere near him originally? It landed a meter from my foot and skidded and nearly hit him."

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"I'm human. Things happen like that. Obviously, it was a very misfortunate bounce. I think if I did it a million times over it wouldn't have gone that way," he added. "What do you want me to say? It was three meters away from the kid. ... That's a question you're gonna say after a three-hour battle against Nadal?"

Later, Kyrgios apologized to the boy with a message on his Instagram Story.

"Hey guys, I just wanna apologize to that ball kid at the end of the match," he wrote. "It was a complete accident and was frustrated at the end of the match. My racket took ac crazy bounce and was never my attention."

He also asked for anyone who knew the ball kid to connect them so he could send the boy a racket.

Later, he shared screenshots of his conversation with the boy, Tei Park, on Instagram, with Park saying he was "completely fine."

Nadal, 35, will now face Carlos Alcaraz Garfia on Saturday afternoon in the semifinal at Indian Wells.