After accusing Nick Kyrgios of faking illness, Bernard Tomic said he will lose respect for his Australia Davis Cup team-mate should he play the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells next week.

Tomic caused a stir on Sunday when he criticised Kyrgios during his 6-4 6-4 5-7 7-6 (7-4) loss to John Isner, who earned a 3-1 win for the United States and a spot in the World Group quarter-finals.

At the change of ends in the third set, Tomic was overheard bemoaning Kyrgios' absence from the first-round tie due to a virus, with courtside microphones picking up the Australian saying: "Nick's sitting down in Canberra. Bulls*** he's sick … two times he's done it. Two times he's faked it."

Tomic - hampered by a wrist injury at Kooyong in Melbourne - was asked about his comments during the post-match news conference.

"It was just in the heat of the moment I said it," Tomic told reporters.

"Obviously I would have loved him to be here, but he is obviously sick like he says he is, and for me I think just now it will be seeing if he actually plays Indian Wells because a similar situation happened last year where he didn't come to Czech and he had stress fractures and somehow played Indian Wells and felt good.

"So now it's going to be really funny for me to see the next two days whether he plays or not, which I think he will."

Tomic added: "I've spoken to him already. If he plays Indian Wells, then he's definitely lost a little bit of my respect.

"I'll be honest with you now, he told me he's playing Indian Wells. I came here, we all knew I had problems with my wrist. I came here, I had pain today a lot. In a situation where it wasn't Davis Cup I would have pulled out, and not played today with the pain I was playing in. So in this situation I pushed through, I played, but I'm just going to be really, really interested if he does actually do.

"We finished [the conversation] pretty well, on good terms. But it's just weird. One of the questions I asked him was 'are you playing Indian Wells?', and he was like 'yeah, I should. I'm still sick but I'm gonna be better tomorrow'. It's just weird for me. I've said enough.

"At the end of the day it's just disappointing to not have him here. He's an amazing player and it would have been important to have him here."