Don’t compare me to Bernie: Kyrgios
NICK Kyrgios has admitted to tanking against lowranked players but says it’s unfair to lump him with a “lost” Bernard Tomic.
As he prepared to lead Australia into Davis Cup battle against Belgium in Brussels overnight, Kyrgios opened up on his relationship with Tomic, who remains in exile after a disastrous 2017 campaign.
The two former junior grand slam tournament champions were jostling for Australia’s top ranking last year before Tomic tumbled to 146th in the world and Kyrgios soared into the top 15 for the first time.
While Kyrgios, 22, admitted he was still “not the professional tennis needs me to be”, he said Tomic was an even greater conundrum.
“Bernie has lost his way,” he said.
“We were pretty good mates when I was younger.
“I obviously didn’t know the tennis tour too well back then and we were guys of similar age, representing the same country, on the road at many of the same tournaments, but a lot has changed since then.
“He needs to figure out what he wants to do.
“I can’t relate to anything he says any more. He says one thing and he does the other. And he contradicts himself all the time.
“He says tennis doesn’t make him happy, that he doesn’t really like the game, yet he says the only thing that will really make him happy is winning a grand slam. It doesn’t make sense at all.”
Kyrgios, who was banned from the ATP Tour last year for not giving his best efforts in a lame loss at the Shanghai Masters, conceded he wasn’t perfect, either.
But he’s trying to get it together under the Australian Davis Cup leadership of mentor Lleyton Hewitt.
“When I’m in the right frame of mind, I feel unbeatable,” he said on the website playersvoice.com.au.
“That period this year where I beat Novak Djokovic a couple of times in a row in Acapulco and Indian Wells?
“It’s against the lowerranked guys on the back courts where I can’t get it to- gether and tank. Obviously, my grand slam season has been terrible.
“I meant what I said straight after losing to John Millman in New York.
“Maybe it’s time for (coach) Sebastian Grosjean to work with someone more dedicated than me.”