Nick Kyrgios has revealed that he’s desperate not to repeat the same mistake made by Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal when he eventually calls time on his playing career.
The 29-year-old Australian made the remarks on the latest episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast, where he also discussed his return to tennis, how he wants to retire ‘more gracefully’ than Andy Murray was able to, and his battles with mental health.
Asked about how and when he might retire, Kyrgios said he did not want to ‘crawl to the finish line’ like Murray.
As with many fans of the Scot, Kyrgios clearly found it difficult to watch Murray battle on as a shadow of his former self.
‘I look at how Andy Murray’s doing it now, and how Rafael is going out, I don’t want to be like that,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to be crawling to the finish line. What Andy Murray’s achieved in this sport is second to basically no one, unless you’re Novak, Federer, or Nadal, the next person is Andy Murray.
‘It’s like, you’ve achieved everything, you deserve to go out a little bit more gracefully than he’s done. I think the surgeries, the pain, it’s just not worth it, in my opinion.’
Andy Murray has been a big supporter of Nick Kyrgios throughout his troubled career
Kyrgios will return to professional tennis for the first time in two years after a long injury hiatus
Kyrgios opened up to Louis Theroux on his podcast about his plans for tennis and retirement
Speaking about a ‘bad period’ of his life in 2019, Kyrgios also told Theroux: ‘I was just struggling with being who I was, it was hard at that time and I didn’t feel like I could take a step back from the sport and work on myself and get myself in the right headspace.’
‘I was just playing and playing and playing and dealing with everything. It was a dark time. I was drinking and I was spiralling out of control and I was continuing to play and travel. It was a lot.’
Asked how much he was drinking, he replied: ‘20 or 30 drinks (in a night), easy. I’d drink like a fish.
‘Anything, vodka, anything.
‘But then just wake up and play Nadal the next day. Give him a good run for his money. It was pretty hectic.’
Kyrgios doesn’t want his tennis career to fizz out like Murray who has battled injuries for years
The Australian star also pointed to Spanish great Rafael Nadal who has also battled injury
The 2022 Wimbledon finalist said he would occasionally be joined by other players in these drinking bouts but ‘very rarely’.
Kyrgios has battled mental health issues for much of his career and he once again credited Murray for his help and support.
In 2019 Murray noticed evidence of self-harm and intervened to help his friend. Kyrgios ended up spending some time in a psychiatric ward that year.
‘I fight it most days,’ said Kyrgios when asked how he is doing. ‘I don’t wake up feeling amazing…I feel like I know my steps to get me out of my bad thinking now…I feel like I could go back into those habits in an instant.
‘I feel like I could do those things, but I don’t want to. Like, before, I didn’t have any resistance. I don’t want to do that now.’
At his peak, Kyrgios reached the Wimbledon final against Novak Djokovic in London
Kyrgios also won the Australian Open doubles title with his good friend Thanasi Kokkinakis
Kyrgios has played only one match since October 2022 as injuries have taken hold. But he revealed earlier this month that he will play in the Australian Open next January.
‘I could come back now and beat 50 per cent of players but I don’t want to do that,’ Kyrgios said. ‘My fans deserve a better version of myself that I am now on the court.
‘I don’t want to just participate and I know the world’s not going to be nice on me when I come back.
‘They’re going to all of a sudden forget that I was out for a year and a half with injuries.
‘They’re just going to think that it’s the Nick Kyrgios that has all the expectation again. So when he loses, it’s not OK.’
Finally, Theroux asked Kyrgios about the oft-repeated narrative that he has hugely underachieved his potential in the sport, that the game comes so easily to him but he failed to back that up with hard work.
‘That’s not the case though, because it’s not easy,’ he said. ‘It’s not like I just picked out “professional tennis player” from a hat and that was my life. I’ve worked 10 times harder than the majority of people.
‘If someone did my day of training, they would be in hospital, for sure. You know what I mean? They don’t see what I do every day.’
