"I feel strange about my career right now" - Is Nick Kyrgios playing with the idea of resigning?
Nick Kyrgios has only played four tournaments since the corona pandemic began - he doesn't seem to know exactly where he's headed.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Aug 02, 2021, 01:26 pm
Nick Kyrgios was out of the tennis circuit for almost a full year, from February 2020 to 2021. And also in the current season he only competed five times: twice in Melbourne, in Wimbledon and Atlanta, this week the Australian wants to go to Washington try his luck.
But how do you get Kyrgios to pick up the bat more often again? A question that was also being pursued in Washington. And who gave Kyrgios a rather complex answer. On the one hand, the obvious was, of course, in the end: Corona. "If that hadn't been an issue, I would of course have played more," said the 26-year-old. "I don't think it was right to play when the situation was very bad, when there was no vaccine, no guidelines on tournaments, no audience restrictions and such."
But what could tournaments do to get him back in sight? Well, so Kyrgios, even if he has hardly played since the beginning of 2020, he is represented in the media every few days. What astonishes him. "If you think I'm bad for the sport, why am I being promoted so much?" Inside his heart he knows that he is great for tennis, "you need personalities."
Kyrgios did not feel valued
Kyrgios also indicated having struggled with mental issues, especially at the beginning of his career where he experienced a lot of hatred and racism. "If someone hadn't had skin as thick as I did ..."
He was like players like Naomi Osaka, who last spoke about her depression . "What I went through was 20 times worse in my opinion," he said. "They only get good press. No hateful news. No ridiculously high penalties for knocking balls out of the stadium."
In his opinion, he should have been treated differently. "Instead of marginalizing someone, almost crucifying them, one should have said: Okay, the guy is different, let him behave differently in a certain way, don't treat him like a Roger Federer or Marin Cilic." The sport could have driven him into a completely dark area, "which he partly did, it was mentally tough to be approached in this way by the media at the age of 18, as one of the most famous players in Australia. It was not easy." Now, at 26, he was old enough and knew that it was all nonsense. But: "I have the feeling that at the beginning of my career tennis had a hard time appreciating personalities."
Is the end of your career not so far away?
How long it will go on for him in the tennis circus, the native Kyrgios apparently cannot assess himself. "Every time I'm at a tournament, I think it could be the last time I'm here," said the current world number 77. "I just don't know where I stand. I feel weird. I feel weird about my career right now."