Australia’s Nick Kyrgios is electrifying. He’s polarizing. He’s phenomenally talented. He’s immature. He’s thrilling to watch. Frustrating, too.
Everyone has an opinion about Nick Kyrgios, though he has only been a significant factor on the men’s pro tennis circuit for the past two years. Among the most common takes on the 21-year-old, currently ranked a career-high No. 16 in the world, is that he is the future of the men’s game.
Since he defeated then-No. 1 Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2014, deploying a spectacular arsenal of weapons, including a rifle serve and whiplash forehand to shock the 14-time Slam winner, Kyrgios has raised eyebrows.
His volatile personality, colorful style and brash outbursts do the same.
A lanky 6-foot-5, Kyrgios ambles about the court with hunched shoulders. Though he was short and overweight in his youth, he gives the appearance of someone who grew up towering over other children and learned to disguise his height to fit in.
Except blending in is not Kyrgios’s M.O.
The young Aussie has all the outward trappings of a marketable rebel: the fauxhawk-slash-fade haircut and manscaped eyebrows; the gold chains and neon clothes; the slacker attitude; the affection for hip hop and video games; the much-publicized snarky comments on- and off-court.
Few doubt his natural talent, however, and there is seemingly little that he cannot do on court. Kyrgios looks lackadaisical until he suddenly uncoils like a rubber band. He possesses that rare weapon in sports, the live arm.
In The New York Times Magazine, Michael Steinberger called Kyrgios “quite possibly the most gifted tennis player to come along since Roger Federer.”
He rips perfectly placed thunderbolt serves. He elevates to whip loose-limbed topspin forehands. He crafts delicate slices. But uniquely, Kyrgios has the kind of soft hands and innate feel for the ball that almost never combines with raw power – even if too often he opts for cutesy half-volleys and, in his words, “fun shots” over percentage tennis.
In addition to his Wimbledon upset of Nadal, the Australian has defeated Roger Federer, and he owns nine victories over Top 10 players. He claimed his first two pro singles titles this year, in Atlanta and Marseilles (where he became the first player under the age of 21 to defeat Top 10 players in consecutive matches since Juan Martin del Potro did it en route to the 2009 US Open championship). Yet for all the hype, Kyrgios still has not progressed beyond the quarterfinals of a major. At the US Open, he’s never been deeper than the third round.
Kyrgios has a habit of racing impatiently through his matches. He doesn’t care if fans have taken their seats after changeovers, and he doesn’t bother with any of the deliberate rituals of his peers. Kyrgios serves as his own coach, if one can call it that, and he admits to having little interest in a standard training program. He prefers to play Pokémon Go (in July he tweeted: “Honestly, been playing that more than tennis”) and, as he told The New York Times, not practice “more than four times a week.”
For all his irreverent attitude, Kyrgios can be unexpectedly charming and engaging with the media and fans – sometimes even in the heat of a match. He is wont to keep up running dialogues with fans in the stands.
“I don't really zone it out, to be honest,” he said after his first-round victory here. “Some guy was like, ‘Change your clothes, that's an awful outfit.’ I was trying to come up with a comeback. I didn't want to say anything. He was an old man. He got me this time.”
He can also be, on rare occasions, thoughtful and reflective. In a press conference after a poor showing, his fourth-round exit at Wimbledon earlier this year, he said, “I think when things get tough, I’m a little bit soft.”
“I’ve got experience,” he continued, “but when it comes to laying it all out there, and competing for a long time, I didn’t do that at all.”
That was a rare admission from a highly competitive professional athlete. But rarer still may have been what he also revealed at Wimbledon: “I don’t love this sport,” Kyrgios said. “But I don’t know what else to do without it.”
His ambivalence and professed preference for basketball may be what’s holding him back. Or it may be just a way to handle the enormous expectations the tennis world has placed on his shoulders.
What probably bothers tennis traditionalists the most about Kyrgios isn’t his on-court style, his penchant for circus shots or even his occasional puerile outbursts. It’s his ambivalence about the game of tennis and his seeming disregard for the prodigious athletic gifts he possesses – the kind of innate skills that his professional peers who train their tails off would kill for.
Fans, coaches and the media have proved themselves capable of forgiving a John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors for their antics because their passion for the game, and desire to excel and win, were never in question. Too often Kyrgios has looked as though he would rather be elsewhere: shooting hoops on the playground or losing himself in video games.
McEnroe, exasperated after Kyrgios appeared to give less than his all in that loss to Andy Murray at Wimbledon, said, “He’s got to look in the mirror if he wants to become a top player and win Slams now.”
Kyrgios’s potential as a pro player is indisputable, maybe even limitless. Exactly what he is capable of on a tennis court is something Nick Kyrgios will have to figure out.
Though he’s only 21, hopefully that day will come soon. His no-drama, almost-all-business win in the second round was a good start.
