THE way Nick Kyrgios has been talked about over the last few months, you could be forgiven for thinking he had taken to drowning kittens in his spare time, so critical has some of the commentary of his recent behaviour been.
The Australian has been well and truly branded the bad boy of world tennis and at the Shanghai Masters this week, he exacerbated his problems by receiving his third code violation for unsportsmanlike behaviour in the space of just six days.
This is particularly relevant since Kyrgios was given a suspended 28-day sentence for making a derogatory comment about Stan Wawrinka’s girlfriend during a match in August. The ATP allowed Kyrgios to continue on the Tour but if he accrues fines of $5000 before February, his suspension will kick in. After his three warnings in less than a week, he is treading a fine line.
Kyrgios has long been earmarked as one of the stand-out men in this new generation of tennis players and he confirmed his potential last summer when, as a 19 year-old, he reached his first grand slam quarter-final, beating Rafael Nadal in the process.
Kyrgios’ ranking continued to rise and earlier this year, when he made it through to the last eight of the Australian Open, he became the first teenager to reach two grand slam quarter-finals since Roger Federer in 2001.
He was a breath of fresh air to men’s tennis. With his neon clothing, flash game and multi-coloured mohawk hair-do, Kyrgios seemed like just the guy to liven up the sport.
And tennis could do with some spicing up. Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic have won the majority of major titles in the past decade and while they are all sublime tennis players, no-one can exactly say they are life and soul of the party.
Federer and Nadal are renowned for their almost over-the-top deference towards each other while Djokovic has, slowly but surely, eliminated his on-court clowning around something that has coincided with the Serb becoming the best tennis player on the planet.
Gone are the days of John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase entertaining the fans with their on-court antics and off-court chat as well as their tennis. These men have been replaced with individuals who are so professional, controlled and stoic that modern-day tennis, at times, verges on boring.
And this is why Kyrgios’ breakthrough was so exciting; here was a player who not only had ability but also the personality to attract a whole new audience to the game. But there’s a very fine line between being classed as a character and being classed as an idiot.
At the moment, Kyrgios is on the wrong side of the line. The arguing with umpires, bad language, racquet smashing and stroppy attitude can, at least in part, be forgiven and dismissed as immaturity but the Wawrinka incident during the summer was universally decried as a step too far.
Kyrgios claimed that he had learned from it, that he would keep his mouth shut in the future. He is still only 20 and as he quite rightly asked the assembled press pack in the aftermath, who is perfect at 20?
Kyrgios is having to do something few ever have to experience: he is growing up in the spotlight. Even Andy Murray said some things when he was 20 that he perhaps would not say nowadays, although he was never in the same league as Kyrgios is just now.
I am all for characters in sport – I fully support athletes being able to show their emotions and their personalities. There are few environments which are quite so high-pressured as one-on-one sport at the very highest level and, frankly, elite athletes saying how they feel is a whole lot more interesting than them trotting out the official party line which is what happens all too often.
But the biggest problem Kyrgios must overcome is that, for the moment at least, his behaviour is making far bigger waves than his tennis. The world No.28 is coming across as a spoilt, attention-seeking brat rather than a top player with an edge.
McEnroe was able to turn his on-court brattish behaviour to his advantage – the American used his tantrums as a tool to fire himself up as well as to distract his opponent.
Kyrgios is the polar opposite; once his shenanigans begin, more often than not, the match is over for him. Something he should consider is that being quirky and distinctive is marketable, being obnoxious and unlikeable is not.
At 20, Kyrgios still has time to sort his head out and use his talent in the most productive way. That, almost everyone agrees, could take him to the very top of the game. But he is losing sympathy by the bucketload and if he does not bring a more controlled attitude to his tennis, he will, sooner or later, end up as one of those guys who had the potential to be very good – but wasn’t.
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