I started writing this column as Nick Kyrgios meekly lost the second set of his opening round match against someone called Fearnley, a fella that is as compelling as Anne from Arrested Development.
I knew there was no chance he’d grit his teeth and force and comeback against Fearnley. He’d be more likely cut off his feet with his racquet than break into another sprint, so I figured I’d get a jump.
The end might be close, but the fire is still burning 🔥@NickKyrgios #AO2025 pic.twitter.com/c3KM404b5L
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) January 13, 2025
Initially, I wasn’t going to write about the tennis. I don’t really know much of anything about tennis, and I don’t have anything to add from a technical perspective.
I do know fandom though, and how fandom can only have the highs if you mix in some lows.
I also know how open I was, maybe even still am, to loving Nick Kyrgios. He is the only tennis player that still compels me, and I am annually excited for his match at the Australian Open.
I know as well, deep down, that he is destined to let me down. And destiny is coming quicker and quicker.
This time, the letdown came almost as soon as play started. My girlfriend said “oh he’s wincing”.
I dismissed her initially, saying he often makes funny faces during play.
Then he grabbed at his ab. As soon as he acknowledges an injury, he’s giving himself a way out.
As he has throughout his career, he took it.
Don Draper said in his Carousel speech that in Greek, “nostalgia means the pain from an old wound. It’s a twinge in your heart more powerful than memory alone…it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.”
The etymology of the word “tragedy” is “he-goat” which doesn’t quite work for my purposes, so for this column “tragedy” is what takes us to a place that we ache to go to again.
The place I long for, the feeling I wish I could have again came when I watched an 18-year-old Nick Kyrgios strut onto Margaret Court Arena to play #27 seeded Benoit Paire with pink Beats and a gigantic ego.
From the second he was on-court, he had my three mates and I enraptured. We were about his age but that was the only thing we had in common with him.
He was a supremely rangy athlete, with long arms and legs, combined with an iron will that meant any ball was in play.
When he got to the ball, he was a shot-maker. It was like watching Carmelo Anthony play tennis. It’s the only way I can describe it.
He fashioned things out of thin air.
The most amazing thing was how quickly the crowd sided with him. His ego was mesmerising at such a young age.
He knew exactly how good he was.
He couldn’t wait to show us, and we couldn’t wait to applaud him.
We sung his name and heckled his opponent. It was electric It was like being at a Melbourne Victory game in the A-League’s glory years.
More than just his ability, it felt like he was mine. He was a cocky Greek kid in a sport that wasn’t for Greek kids, one that wouldn’t have much time for his flavour of brashness.
He had to be so good that he would force the sport to accept him.
He ultimately lost the Paire match in five sets after running out of juice toward the end. But that wasn’t the point. I had a new star.
And so the wound opened. The longing to return to that place in 2014.
While he still had great moments, notably his run at Wimbledon in 2022,
and remained one of the best athlete personalities in the world (which has kept me enjoying him for years, more than I ever did Bernard Tomic), he has never lived up to his enormous potential.
At the root of the disappointment that has defined his career, I think, lies that ego that so deeply compelled as at Margaret Court that night.
But I find his ego to be the path to his real issue: insecurity.
The guy that I’m watching try and fight back in the third set, in a match with an obvious talent disparity, is what would have happened if Daniel Kaffee had got that set of steak knives and never went to the trial where he finally gave it his all.
It’s a guy that believes so much in his ability, and that ability is so intrinsically intwined with his self-worth, that he protects himself by keeping something in the tank.
If he doesn’t train hard then he has a reason for having lost that isn’t “the other bloke was better”.
He’s said it himself. In 2017 he said to the New Yorker ““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.”
This happens in athletes.
UFC Heavyweight champion Jon Jones famously said to Joe Rogan that he would “go out and party one week before every fight.” He then said his “logic was if this guy were to beat me somehow, I can look myself in the mirror and say that, ‘Well, I lost because I got hammered the week before the fight’ so there’s a safety net”.
Nick Kyrgios has the same safety net, but not the other thing that Jon Jones has.
Where Nick’s ego has him get petulant and angry, to the point where his internal monologue is “well I’ll just stop trying”, Jones’ drives him to never allow himself to be embarrassed in the octagon (Jones has embarrassed himself prolifically outside the octagon, of course).
There.
That’s the tragedy.
Nick Kyrgios’ blend of ego and insecurity is not uncommon, especially in athletes of his calibre. It’s probably more of a necessity than anything.
The tragedy is the way that it pushes him.
It doesn’t drive him to chase a ball down or to dig a little deeper, it tells him to just “give up.”
Ever the showman 🎪 the ol' underarm, behind-the-back combo 😂
Welcome back to the court @NickKyrgios!#CanadianClubAO • #Cheeky • #DrinkResponsibly • @espn • @eurosport • @wwos • @wowowtennis pic.twitter.com/juRvcUdU7N
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 13, 2025
I know Kyrgios has had other issues, legal and physical.
I know he came into the Open injured and was 50/50 on playing.
In control from go to woah, Jacob Fearnley gets the better of Nick Kyrgios 7-6(3) 6-3 7-6(2)
Onto the next one, Jacob!@wwos • @espn • @eurosport • @wowowtennis • #AusOpen • #AO2025 pic.twitter.com/N6OY3jSM1J
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 13, 2025
But this column isn’t about his effort on Monday night.
It’s about the 11 years between that match against Paire and now.
It’s about a man who walks into the place where he is most gifted, looking for a way out.
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