Nick Kyrgios might have pulled with an injury at Wimbledon 2017 but his star is still rising. In fact, it is rising so much that The New Yorker’s profiled him in a piece titled: Nick Kyrgios – The reluctant rising star of tennis.
Nick Kyrgios -The Most Exciting New Talent in Men’s Tennis Isn’t Sure If He Likes the Game
In “The Kyrgios Enigma” (p. 28), Louisa Thomas profiles Nick Kyrgios, the twenty-two-year-old Australian tennis player who is ranked twentieth in the world—but does he even want to play? “Some days, I’m really good,” Kyrgios told Thomas. “I like going out on the practice court and training with my mates. But I don’t know about fully engaging and giving everything to it. It’s just a game. It’s just a sport. It’s such a small part of my life.” Kyrgios, who is Australian, is the only active player ever to defeat Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic in their first meetings. Brad Gilbert, an ESPN commentator and Andre Agassi’s former coach, told Thomas, “I think he has the most talent of anyone twenty-five and under . . . If you put the total package around him”—coaches, trainers, focussed practice sessions, strenuous training blocks—“and he embraced that, I would be shocked if he didn’t win multiple slams and become top two in the world.” Andy Murray, the No. 1 men’s player, has become a mentor to Kyrgios. “I’ve experienced a lot of what he is going through,” Murray wrote in an e-mail. “As athletes, we’re supposed to be mentally strong, and if you are seen to be talking about feelings or anything like that, not believing in yourself or backing yourself or struggling to cope with pressure, that’s seen as a negative.”
Kyrgios gets homesick, injured, and bored. He wants to be playing basketball; he’d rather be fishing; he misses his dogs, his girlfriend, his family, his friends. “The thing about tennis life is that it’s the same thing every day,” Kyrgios told Thomas. “You train. You come back to the hotel. You get treatment. You eat. You sleep. You get up.” Paul McNamee, a retired Australian player and a former C.E.O. of the Australian Open, said, “I think deep down, in his own way, he’s becoming more professional . . . But to admit that and to fail—he would not cope with that, maybe.” When asked why he doesn’t quit tennis, Kyrgios said, “I’d rather be doing that than working at Chipotle or something . . . For me, it’s an easy way to make money. I’m just hitting a ball over a net . . . I’ve grown up with it. It’s a part of me. It’s all I really know how to do.”
Read the entire article over at The New Yorker
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