Otacon
Hall of Fame
At the Brisbane International earlier this week, Nick Kyrgios smoked a perfectly disguised forehand from the baseline into the left corner of his opponent’s court to win the first set of his first-round match against American Ryan Harrison.
Kyrgios reacted in typical Kyrgios style: arms outstretched, Jesus-like, as if to say, “Look at me! Look at what I’ve just done! Somebody make me a Vegemite sandwich!”
Something like that. That’s what it felt like. It’s easy to judge. In truth, he was doing something different altogether.
Battle within: It’s not easy being Nick Kyrgios, according to Nick Kyrgios.CREDIT:AAP
When Kyrgios sat down in his chair next to the umpire at the changeover, Channel Nine opened up the court-side microphones and the commentators fell silent. It allowed the viewer to listen in to Kyrgios, who was gibbering away. Not to the umpire, not to his entourage in the stands, but to himself.
Ugh. Sitting at home, my heart sunk.
It’s disturbing, when you cover sport for a period of time, to start seeing yourself in the people you write about.
Like many columnists, I’ve taken Kyrgios apart for his brattish behaviour on and off the court. I applauded former AOC boss Kitty Chiller for not wanting to pick him and fellow enfant terrible Bernard Tomic in the Australian team to compete at the Rio Olympics. Be a child on your own time and expense, sure, but not in Australian green and gold, blah, blah, blah.
But deep down, if I’m being fair dinkum, for real, I have more defects of character like Nick Kyrgios than I am like, say, Roger Federer.
I want to be Roger Federer. I really do. I want to go about my business with a smile on my face, breezing through life with a backhand that should be framed and hung in place of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, barely raising a sweat, kissing babies, taking selfies at the net with Serena, being loved universally and, probably, intergallatically.
Picture perfect: Roger Federer snaps a selfie with Serena Williams at the Hopman Cup in Perth.CREDIT:
Mostly, I would like Roger Federer’s hair.
But I’m actually more Nick Kyrgios: a complete and utter hot mess struggling by the hour to keep his **** together, continually riding an emotional roller coaster, not knowing whether to just walk away and do something else or stay grounded, stay honest, stop being a whinger and get on with life.
Kyrgios plays out his emotions on a tennis court with the microphones turned up. I play them out in my apartment.
“I think that’s exactly right,” John McEnroe said when I put my “we want to be Federer, but we’re actually Kyrgios” theory to him in an interview with the Herald this week. “That’s why I want to see him overcome this. I’d like to see him succeed. It would be a shame if he didn’t. But I’m worried.”
The response from readers to that interview held a familiar line: you might want Nick to succeed, John, but we gave up on him a long time ago.
Kyrgios might have done irreparable damage to his relationship with the Australian public, although I’d be stunned if he cared. But the way he continues to feel tortured on the tennis court is a reminder of how tough professional sport can be.
It’s difficult to think of a sport that tortures a soul so much. Maybe golf? Perhaps cricket?
“Opening the batting in Test cricket is very, very hard,” Matthew Hayden once told me in an interview after he finally sealed his place in the Australian Test side after years of making runs for Queensland in the Sheffield Shield. “People underestimate just how difficult it can be.”
Michael Bevan’s mental battles around his batting were legendary. One story not easily forgotten is about him walking from the field after being dismissed and just standing under the shower in the dressing room, cold water blasting, in his full kit.
But tennis seems to bring torture of Game of Thrones proportions. Marat Safin once broke 48 racquets in one season. He would pretend to cry on the court, shaking his head uttering, “Why? Why? Why? Why?” whenever he stuffed up a shot.
“We cried, we played, we broke the racquets, we insulted the referees, only sometimes, but this is all part of our life,” Safin said when he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
It’s a life that seems to choose the player long before the player chooses the sport. Kyrgios can walk away at any stage, sure, but seems entrapped in a career and life he sometimes wants, he sometimes doesn’t, with his arms outstretched in dismay as if to say, “Um, I have no idea what I’m doing. What would Roger do?”
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis...you-re-more-like-kyrgios-20190105-p50pq3.html
Kyrgios reacted in typical Kyrgios style: arms outstretched, Jesus-like, as if to say, “Look at me! Look at what I’ve just done! Somebody make me a Vegemite sandwich!”
Something like that. That’s what it felt like. It’s easy to judge. In truth, he was doing something different altogether.
Battle within: It’s not easy being Nick Kyrgios, according to Nick Kyrgios.CREDIT:AAP
When Kyrgios sat down in his chair next to the umpire at the changeover, Channel Nine opened up the court-side microphones and the commentators fell silent. It allowed the viewer to listen in to Kyrgios, who was gibbering away. Not to the umpire, not to his entourage in the stands, but to himself.
Ugh. Sitting at home, my heart sunk.
It’s disturbing, when you cover sport for a period of time, to start seeing yourself in the people you write about.
Like many columnists, I’ve taken Kyrgios apart for his brattish behaviour on and off the court. I applauded former AOC boss Kitty Chiller for not wanting to pick him and fellow enfant terrible Bernard Tomic in the Australian team to compete at the Rio Olympics. Be a child on your own time and expense, sure, but not in Australian green and gold, blah, blah, blah.
But deep down, if I’m being fair dinkum, for real, I have more defects of character like Nick Kyrgios than I am like, say, Roger Federer.
I want to be Roger Federer. I really do. I want to go about my business with a smile on my face, breezing through life with a backhand that should be framed and hung in place of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, barely raising a sweat, kissing babies, taking selfies at the net with Serena, being loved universally and, probably, intergallatically.
Picture perfect: Roger Federer snaps a selfie with Serena Williams at the Hopman Cup in Perth.CREDIT:
Mostly, I would like Roger Federer’s hair.
But I’m actually more Nick Kyrgios: a complete and utter hot mess struggling by the hour to keep his **** together, continually riding an emotional roller coaster, not knowing whether to just walk away and do something else or stay grounded, stay honest, stop being a whinger and get on with life.
Kyrgios plays out his emotions on a tennis court with the microphones turned up. I play them out in my apartment.
“I think that’s exactly right,” John McEnroe said when I put my “we want to be Federer, but we’re actually Kyrgios” theory to him in an interview with the Herald this week. “That’s why I want to see him overcome this. I’d like to see him succeed. It would be a shame if he didn’t. But I’m worried.”
The response from readers to that interview held a familiar line: you might want Nick to succeed, John, but we gave up on him a long time ago.
Kyrgios might have done irreparable damage to his relationship with the Australian public, although I’d be stunned if he cared. But the way he continues to feel tortured on the tennis court is a reminder of how tough professional sport can be.
It’s difficult to think of a sport that tortures a soul so much. Maybe golf? Perhaps cricket?
“Opening the batting in Test cricket is very, very hard,” Matthew Hayden once told me in an interview after he finally sealed his place in the Australian Test side after years of making runs for Queensland in the Sheffield Shield. “People underestimate just how difficult it can be.”
Michael Bevan’s mental battles around his batting were legendary. One story not easily forgotten is about him walking from the field after being dismissed and just standing under the shower in the dressing room, cold water blasting, in his full kit.
But tennis seems to bring torture of Game of Thrones proportions. Marat Safin once broke 48 racquets in one season. He would pretend to cry on the court, shaking his head uttering, “Why? Why? Why? Why?” whenever he stuffed up a shot.
“We cried, we played, we broke the racquets, we insulted the referees, only sometimes, but this is all part of our life,” Safin said when he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
It’s a life that seems to choose the player long before the player chooses the sport. Kyrgios can walk away at any stage, sure, but seems entrapped in a career and life he sometimes wants, he sometimes doesn’t, with his arms outstretched in dismay as if to say, “Um, I have no idea what I’m doing. What would Roger do?”
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/tennis...you-re-more-like-kyrgios-20190105-p50pq3.html
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