Some days it’s fun to play, other days I’d rather do anything else Mike Dickson
Sits down with Nick Kyrgios... and his mum
NICK Kyrgios sinks into the sofa at his rented home by Wimbledon Common, wearing his favoured offduty kit of baggy shorts and basketball top, andwondering how he ever came to be here.
“Growing up I never thought that I would be a professional tennis player, never crossed my mind,” admits the 22-year-old Australian. So he is the accidental tennis player? “You could say that, yeah.”
Some days he is very happy in the role, other days he is not. This goes some way to explaining his unpredictable behaviour on court, about which he is disarmingly honest.
“I played 18 tournaments and I probably tanked eight of them, but I’m still ranked in the top 20,” he says matterof-factly.
Kyrgios defies simplistic analysis and divides opinion like no other player in the game. But on one thing everyone is agreed, including sages such as John Mcenroe and Brad Gilbert: he has more raw talent than anybody tennis has seen since members of the Big Four’ emerged. The invite to go round comes on Thursday afternoon. He is on his way back from practice at Queen’s Club when I arrive, to be let in by his mother Nill, who is absolutely charming.
She tells of how her younger son morphed from a tubby child into a pristine athlete; how she met his father George while they were students at the University of Canberra; of overnight car journeys to country towns where they would 20:Australian Nick Kyrgios won three ATP events last year, including the Japan Open, the Atlanta Tennis Championships and the Open 13 in Marseilles. stay at caravan parks while he played in tournaments.
And also of the hurt she has sometimes felt at vehement criticisms of her son. She admits he can be headstrong but feels he is undeserving of some of the more personal attacks.
After a while Kyrgios arrives with a cheery “Hello!” and a beaming, natural smile. It is a scene of normal domesticity miles removed from the portrait of him as some Prince of Darkness.
Andy Murray has become a good friend and is among those who have said that the latter image is far from reality. It turns out they have just been in the gym together, where Murray has been winding him up about his basketball skills compared to those of his compatriot Bernard Tomic.
The Scot and Kyrgios have much in common, from a not immediately obvious personal warmth, to a tendency to question received wisdom, to an uncanny tactical reading of the game. Murray knows what it is like to feel misunderstood while you make youthful mistakes very publicly.
Murray has learned to choose his words carefully, but Kyrgios remains gloriously unfiltered. “Some days it’s fun to play but sometimes I’d rather be doing something else,” he bluntly concedes. “When I’m on the road there are times when I find the motivation tough. I don’t like the long trips, I dread them. I hate the travelling.”
At Queen’s last year – where he is playing next week – the story went that, when his firstround match against Milos Raonic was called, he was lying on a sofa in the players’ lounge. He just picked up his racket bag and walked straight out on court without warming up.
Is this true? “Yes, that’s what happened. I just like to go out on court and play some tennis, although I don’t think people believe me. I couldn’t have the same approach as Raonic. He has a big team around him and does everything very diligently, that isn’t me.”
He has, though, stepped up his level of professionalism since an early exit from January’s Australian Open left him feeling “in a dark place”. He has spent most of his career without a coach, but since then he has been doing some work with former Wimbledon semi-finalist Sebastien Grosjean.
Many believe Kyrgios will win Wimbledon one day. He made the quarter-finals aged 19, dramatically hitting Rafael Nadal off the Centre Court in the fourth round. “I love it here in London, and I feel Wimbledon is probably my best chance of winning a Grand Slam,” he says.
While his talent is extraordinary, there is a contrasting ordinariness about him outside the pressure of the rectangle. He admits to doing foolish things in the past but explains that he struggles with the blowtorch of public scrutiny.
“I hate people thinking I’m anything different to them. I just play tennis, I’m a normal young guy, I love spending time with my girlfriend (Croatian-australian player Ajla Tomljanovic, whose name is tattooed on his wrist), I love basketball, I play video games. I’m not at all high maintenance away from the court.’
Basketball is his major passion and he played it to state level until choosing to concentrate on tennis.there is no history of tennis in the genes but his mother was a national college badminton champion. His father had a season playing professional soccer in Melbourne and was offered terms to go to play in Greece, where his family are originally from, but turned it down.
Nill, who has not spoken publicly before, describes how her younger son was initially unexceptional at tennis due to his build: “He was a chubby little boy but always very strong and competitive. We knew that he would lose his puppy fat eventually because that was what happened with his older brother.
“He was also lucky in that there was a very strong group of boys his age in Canberra, and they all pushed each other.”
By 12 Nick was starting to edge ahead of the pack and won a national title. His victory speech that day is fondly remembered in Canberra tennis circles. It amounted to: “I would like to thank the canteen ladies for their delicious chicken sandwiches.”
She admits there have been times when the criticism of her son has got to her. Australian swimming legend Dawn Fraser was among those who piled in after his controversial exit at Wimbledon two years ago to Richard Gasquet, when he appeared to give up during one game.
I’ve talked to Judy Murray about it, she has gone through the same thing. Nick actually cares about other people a lot.”
As a sport, tennis is unsure about what it wants from Kyrgios. Desperate for new stars who generate interest as the stellar generation of Murray & Co get older, it craves his box office appeal.
But then it cannot look the other way, such as when he tanked in Shanghai last year, which led to a suspension. He is not a saint, but he is far from an irredeemable sinner. In the next few weeks it will be hard to avert the eyes from this most compelling, deceptively complex athlete. – Daily Mail