Despite a persistent injury, Nick Kyrgios will compete at the Australian Open. The enfant terrible of top tennis is driving fans in Melbourne crazy. But only briefly.
Christoph Cöln reports from Melbourne
The fact that there is a method to Nick Kyrgios’ madness became clear in the first game of his opening match against Briton Jacob Fearnley. He opened it with a double fault, and immediately afterwards he hit an ace. Then another. And when he actually had the game secured, he made another double fault – which he followed up with an ace to win the point. Phew.
The 29-year-old had been away from the big tennis circuit for 859 days. Various injuries had put him out of action and for a long time it even seemed as if his career was over. Now the “bad boy” of tennis was back again. Luckily, as most tennis fans think. Luckily, as Kyrgios himself thinks. “I think it’s good that I’m back. It’s important. Tennis was in danger of becoming a bit boring.”
The German tennis legend Boris Becker also commented on Kyrgios. But not in a good way. Becker commented on the statements made by some athletes on the tour – including Kyrgios – about the prominent doping cases surrounding Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek. “If players who haven’t verified it comment on it, I find it disgusting,” said the six-time Grand Slam tournament winner at Eurosport: “I don’t make such comments about a colleague.”
Kyrgios described it as “disgusting” that Sinner and Swiatek, both world number one, tested positive for doping.
He rumbled off the pitch, and it wasn’t boring with Kyrgios on the pitch either, that much was clear after a short time in the match against Fearnley. He sent the audience on a rollercoaster ride. At times he played brilliantly, giving the opponent no chance with hard-hit balls placed with millimeter precision. Then again he didn’t succeed at all.
The spectators in the John Cain Arena celebrated the 29-year-old every time he won a rally like an artist who had just held his head in a wide-open snapdragon. Daring is his thing, not efficiency. He’s drawn to the crazy, not the obvious.
When his opponent offered him a good opportunity to break in the sixth game of the first set, Kyrgios did not opt for the safe cross into the deserted field: he preferred to place a daring stop directly in Fearnley’s run. But the Brit was too quick, he reached the felt ball at the last moment and slammed it around Kyrgios’ ears.
Kyrgios obviously doesn’t know whether these playful brawls are calculated or just an expression of a quicksilver instinct. “Every time I go on the pitch I’m unsure whether I’m going to be totally contradictory in a good way or in a bad way,” he said at the pre-match press conference. He knows about his demons, but he doesn’t know them well enough to control them. They play with him the way he plays with the opponents. And sometimes with him too.
An abdominal muscle strain suffered two weeks ago prevented Kyrgios from playing for the Australian Open in Brisbane. It was questionable whether he would even be able to compete in his home tournament. In order to protect himself, he even skipped serving during training.
“I can tolerate a lot of painkillers and I can push through, even though that’s probably not the smartest thing to do,” he said. By the end of the first set it became clear that he was playing with a handicap. He repeatedly clutched his stomach and grimaced in pain. The audience sensed that something was wrong. His opponent felt it too.