Kyrgios, Nick

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    The Laver Cup and Its Growing Tradition

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    Roger Federer, who helped create the team event in 2017, said “the first year was definitely a highlight.” The cup is now in its seventh year.Roger Federer was in a bit of a panic. He knew how high the stakes were as he took the court at Prague’s O2 Arena in September 2017 for a Sunday afternoon match against Nick Kyrgios.Not only was Federer a founder of the Laver Cup team competition that made its much-ballyhooed debut that year, but he and Tony Godsick, his longtime manager, had worked to design rules that would likely result in a down-to-the wire finish between the team from Europe and the one representing the rest of the world. Federer got what he wanted, but now he had to deliver.“I knew that if I lost against Kyrgios — and I was down match point — it would come down to a one-set super tiebreaker in doubles for the whole Laver Cup, and it would have been Rafa [Nadal] and me against Kyrgios and [Jack] Sock,” Federer said by phone last week. “It would have been insane. I was so happy that by beating Kyrgios I didn’t have to go through that.”Federer spoke last week as he prepared to leave for Berlin and this year’s Laver Cup. Earlier in the day he played tennis for half an hour, a luxury these days, but one he still described as “so much fun.” As he reminisced about his favorite Laver Cup memories his voice rose with enthusiasm.“That first year was definitely a highlight,” said Federer, who won 20 major singles titles, including eight at Wimbledon and five at the U.S. Open. “And, of course, walking out to play doubles with Rafa, there was such high expectation that had never happened before. That was magical.”Federer, seated left, and Rafael Nadal after their 2022 doubles match in the Laver Cup in London against Frances Tiafoe and Jack Sock. It was Federer’s final tournament before his retirement.Tom Jenkins/Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Field Guide to the 2023 U.S. Open

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      With the grass and clay seasons over, the eyes of the tennis world now turn to Flushing Meadows.The U.S. Open, played from Aug. 28 to Sept. 10 in Queens, is the last Grand Slam tournament of the calendar year, giving players one more chance to win a major title. Each year, the tournament creates a buzz around New York City, and it never fails to excite — or wreak havoc on sleep schedules, with marathon matches that can go deep into the night.At last year’s U.S. Open, Serena Williams largely stole the show during the first week as she closed out her storied career by reaching the third round of the singles draw. This year, without Williams, Roger Federer and an injured Rafael Nadal, a largely younger generation of tennis stars is looking to make a deep run in the tournament.Both of the 2022 singles winners are back in the field: Iga Swiatek, the 22-year-old from Poland and a four-time Grand Slam tournament champion, and Carlos Alcaraz, the 20-year-old Spanish phenom with two Grand Slam singles titles under his belt. But while Alcaraz and Swiatek are among those favored to win, you never know when a couple of teenagers could surprise everyone and reach the final.Here’s what to know about this year’s U.S. Open.How can I watch?In the United States, ESPN will carry the action from the first ball of the day until late into the night. Over Labor Day weekend, ABC will also broadcast some matches.Around the world, other networks airing the tournament include TSN in Canada, Sky Sports in Britain, Migu in China, Sky Deutschland in Germany, SuperTennis in Italy and Movistar in Spain.Kids lined up for autographs from Frances Tiafoe in Arthur Ashe Stadium after he practiced on Friday.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times‘Stand clear of the closing doors, please.’For those heading out to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, the No. 7 train, which makes stops in Manhattan at Times Square and Grand Central Station, is one of the easiest ways to get to the U.S. Open.The No. 7 train stops at Mets-Willets Point station, which leads directly to the tennis grounds. (If you see a bunch of fans in Mets gear, turn around because you’ve gone the wrong way.) It also includes an express route, which makes fewer stops than the local trains, and on certain nights an even faster “super express train” is offered back to Manhattan. Another option is to take the Long Island Rail Road to the Mets-Willets Point station.Parking is also available at the tournament, along with designated ride-share spots. But beware: Heavy traffic often means that driving either in or out of Manhattan can take longer than a train ride.Baseball fans and tennis fans will mingle at the Mets-Willets Point subway station.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesCan’t get a ticket to Arthur Ashe Stadium?There is something electric about a night match under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium. The court is reserved for the tournament’s top-billed players, who are spurred on by raucous, Honey Deuce-fueled crowds. But a seat in Arthur Ashe can be pricey.Other options include buying a ticket to Louis Armstrong Stadium or the Grandstand, which both host a number of often-underrated matches and offer a closer look at the action. There isn’t a bad seat in either venue.Perhaps one of the best — and more laissez-faire — ways to enjoy the tournament is to buy a grounds pass and hop around from court to court. A grounds pass also offers first-come, first-serve access to the general admission seating in Armstrong and the Grandstand.Don’t sleep on those numbered outer courts, either. At last year’s tournament, Aryna Sabalenka, who won this year’s Australian Open, was down — 2-6, 1-5 — in a second-round match against Kaia Kanepi. The match seemed all but over until Sabalenka fought back to win the second set and eventually the third. Where did this epic comeback go down? Court 5, over by the practice courts.Spectators watched qualifying matches inside the Grandstand on Friday.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesWho’s playing?Novak Djokovic is back. After missing last year’s U.S. Open because he was not vaccinated against the coronavirus, as American travel restrictions required of foreign visitors at the time, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion returns to seek a 24th title.Djokovic will enter the tournament in strong form after winning the Western & Southern Open in Ohio last week against Alcaraz. In the final, Djokovic was down a set, and he appeared to be suffering badly from the heat, but he rallied and forced a third set, winning on a tiebreaker.In addition to Alcaraz and Swiatek, other big names in this year’s tournament include Sabalenka of Belarus, Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, Daniil Medvedev of Russia, Casper Ruud of Norway and Elena Rybakina, who represents Kazakhstan. Some of the top-seeded American players include Frances Tiafoe, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz.Frances Tiafoe made a deep run in last year’s U.S. Open.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesKeep an eye on these story lines.Elina Svitolina, a U.S. Open semifinalist in 2019, missed last year’s tournament while taking time off for the birth of her daughter and raising money for Ukraine, her home country, after it was invaded by Russia. Since returning to tennis this year, Svitolina made an impressive run to the quarterfinals of the French Open, and she defeated Swiatek to reach the semifinals of Wimbledon. (By the way, don’t be surprised if you see Svitolina or any Ukrainian player refuse to shake hands with Russian or Belarusian players.)Gauff, the 19-year-old who was a French Open finalist in 2022, enters the U.S. Open having won two titles this month, in Washington, D.C., and Ohio. In the semis of the Western & Southern Open, she was finally able to beat Swiatek, having lost the previous seven matches against her.Caroline Wozniacki and Venus Williams were both awarded wild-card slots at this year’s U.S. Open. Wozniacki, a one-time Grand Slam singles champion from Denmark, is back after retiring from tennis in 2020 to start a family. Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion, shows no signs of stopping at 43.On the men’s side, Andy Murray, 36, is another veteran who is keeping on with three Grand Slam titles in tow, and John Isner, the 38-year-old American, was awarded a wild card for what he said will be his final tournament.Someone else to keep tabs on is Jennifer Brady, the 28-year-old American who reached the 2021 Australian Open final. After missing nearly two years with injuries, Brady is back on the tennis scene.Jennifer Brady made her return to tennis this year.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesSome big names are missing this year.One of the most notable absences will be Rafael Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion. He is out for the rest of the year with an injury and is eyeing a return next year.This year’s tournament will also lack some recent U.S. Open champions: Naomi Osaka, who won the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020, will miss this year’s tournament after giving birth to a daughter this summer. Emma Raducanu, who won the 2021 U.S. Open women’s title as a qualifier without losing a single set, is recovering from minor procedures on both hands and an ankle. Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 U.S. Open champion, is out this year with a small stress fracture in her back.Simona Halep, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, was withdrawn from the tournament because she received a provisional suspension in October after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug during last year’s U.S. Open.Nick Kyrgios, the fiery Australian, withdrew from the men’s draw in early August. Kyrgios, who has played in only one tournament this year, wrote on Instagram that a wrist injury was keeping him out of the U.S. Open.Naomi Osaka at last year’s U.S. Open.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesMark your calendars.The action begins on Monday, with the first, second and third rounds scheduled through Sept. 2. The round of 16 starts on Sept. 3, followed by the quarterfinals on Sept. 5 and 6.The women’s semifinals are scheduled for Sept. 7, with the men’s semifinals on Sept. 8. The women’s final will be played Sept. 9, and the tournament wraps up with the men’s final on Sept. 10.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times More

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      ‘Break Point’ Just Might Be the Best Way to Watch Tennis

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      The docuseries feels more like a prestige psychodrama — which gets the highs and lows of the pro circuit right.In the sixth episode of the Netflix docuseries “Break Point,” Ajla Tomljanovic, a journeywoman tennis player who has spent much of the last decade in the Top 100 of the world rankings, is shown splayed across an exercise mat in a drab training room after reaching the 2022 Wimbledon quarterfinals. Her father, Ratko, stretches out her hamstrings. She receives a congratulatory phone call from her sister and another from her idol-turned-mentor, the 18-time major champion Chris Evert, before Ratko announces that it’s time for the dreaded ice bath. “By the way,” Tomljanovic says at one point, “do we have a room?” Shortly after his daughter sealed her spot in the final eight of the world’s pre-eminent tennis tournament, Ratko was seen on booking.com, extending their stay in London.This is not the stuff of your typical sports documentary, but it is the life of a professional tennis player. Circumnavigating the globe for much of the year with only a small circle of coaches, physiotherapists and perhaps a parent, they shoulder alone the bureaucratic irritations that, in other elite sports, might be outsourced to agents and managers. If at some tournaments they surprise even themselves by outlasting their hotel accommodations, most events will only harden them to the standard torments of the circuit, which reminds them weekly of their place in the pecking order. As Taylor Fritz, now the top-ranked American men’s player, remarks in one “Break Point” episode, “It’s tough to be happy in tennis, because every single week everyone loses but one person.” This is a sobering audit, coming from a player who wins considerably more than his approximately 2,000 peers on the tour.“Break Point,” executive-produced by Paul Martin and the Oscar-winning filmmaker James Gay-Rees, arrived this year as a gift to tennis fans, for whom splashy, well-produced and readily accessible documentaries about the sport have been hard to come by. Tennis, today, finds itself in the crepuscular light of an era when at least five different players — the Williams sisters, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — have surely deserved mini-series of their own. But the sport has never enjoyed its own “All or Nothing,” the all-access Amazon program that follows a different professional sports team each season, or the event-television status accorded to “The Last Dance,” the Netflix docuseries about Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, with its luxury suite of talking heads: Nas, Isiah Thomas, “former Chicago resident” Barack Obama. Perhaps this is because the narrative tropes of the genre tend toward triumphs and Gatorade showers, while the procedural and psychological realities of professional tennis lie elsewhere. The 10 episodes of “Break Point” render tennis unromantically: This is the rare sports doc whose primary subject is loss.In Andre Agassi’s memorably frank memoir, “Open,” he describes the tennis calendar with subtle poetry, detailing “how we start the year on the other side of the world, at the Australian Open, and then just chase the sun.” This itinerary more or less dictates the structure of “Break Point,” which opens at the year’s first Grand Slam and closes at the year-end championships in November. At each tournament, the players it spotlights post impressive results — and then, typically, they lose, thwarted sometimes by the sport’s stubborn luminaries but more often by bouts of nerves or exhaustion. They find comfort where they can, juggling a soccer ball or lying back with a self-made R.&B. track in a hotel room. But many tears are shed, after which they redouble their commitments to work harder, be smarter, get hungrier. “You have to be cold to build a champion mind-set,” says the Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas.‘It’s tough to be happy in tennis.’Those who watched Wimbledon this month might find, in all this, an instructive companion piece to live tennis. “Break Point” is frustratingly short on actual game play, shaving matches down to their rudiments in a way that understates the freakish tactical discipline required of players; viewers will not, for example, come away with any greater understanding of point construction than they will from having watched Djokovic pull his opponents out wide with progressively heavier forehands, only to wrong-foot them with a backhand up the line. They will, however, come to understand how intensely demoralizing it must be to stand across the net from him. In an episode following last year’s Wimbledon, we watch the talented but irascible Nick Kyrgios, as close as tennis has to its own Dennis Rodman, play Djokovic in the final. He gets off to a hot start and then, like so many before him, begins to wilt. “He’s calmer; you can’t rush him,” he says of Djokovic, in a voice-over the series aptly sets against footage of an exasperated Kyrgios admonishing the umpire, the crowd, even friends and family in his own box. These are athletes we’re accustomed to seeing at their steeliest or their most combustible; the matches in “Break Point” may be fresh in the memory of most tennis fans, but the series benefits greatly from its subjects’ clearer-headed reflections.For all its pretensions to realism, “Break Point” is a shrewd, and perhaps doomed, attempt to fill the sport’s impending power vacuum. Kyrgios and Tsitsipas are among a handful of strivers it positions as the sport’s new stars, along with others like Casper Ruud, Ons Jabeur and Aryna Sabalenka. All, naturally, subjected themselves to Netflix’s cameras. This kind of access is increasingly crucial to sports documentaries, a fact that often results in work that’s unduly deferential to its subjects, as with “The Last Dance” and Michael Jordan.Tennis, though, runs counter to this mandate. It is perhaps the sport most conducive to solipsism. Singles players perform alone. On-court coaching is generally prohibited, so there are no rousing speeches to inspire unlikely comebacks. The game’s essential psychodrama takes place within the mind — often in the 25 seconds allotted between points, or in the split seconds during which one must decide whether to go cross-court or down the line, to flatten the ball or welter it with spin. I can remember, as a junior-tennis also-ran, my coaches saying that once my eyes wandered to my opponent across the net, they knew I would lose. This might explain why tennis players so often resort to their index of obsessive tics, like hiking up their socks or adjusting their racket strings just so.By the season’s end, we meet Tomljanovic again at the U.S. Open, where she earned the awkward distinction of sending Serena Williams into retirement. At the time, ESPN’s broadcast of the match yielded nearly five million viewers, making it the most-watched tennis telecast in the network’s history. This was Serena’s swan song, but “Break Point” depicts it from the perspective of our reluctant victor. Between the second and third sets, Tomljanovic shields her face with a sweat towel, as if to quiet the sound of 24,000 spectators rooting against her. In tennis, it seems, even winning can feel like a drag.After the match, we find Tomljanovic cooling down on a stationary bike. Ratko, who has emerged as the show’s sole source of comedic relief, comes up from behind, embracing his daughter with a joke about her beating the greatest player of all time. “But why do I feel so conflicted?” she asks. There is no Gatorade bath, no confetti. To win the tournament, she still has four more matches to go.Opening illustration: Source photographs from Netflix; Tim Clayton/Corbis, via Getty ImagesJake Nevins is a writer in Brooklyn and the digital editor at Interview Magazine. He has written about books, sports and pop culture for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Nation. More

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      Court Dismisses Guilty Plea by Australian Tennis Star Nick Kyrgios in Assault Case

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      The guilty plea and dismissal stemmed from a confrontation Mr. Kyrgios had with his partner in 2021 when she tried to prevent him from leaving in a ride-hailing car.MELBOURNE, Australia — The Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios pleaded guilty on Friday to common assault during a court hearing in Canberra, the Australian capital and his hometown. But shortly after, the court dismissed the charge.Mr. Kyrgios, 27, faced a maximum penalty of two years in prison for shoving his former romantic partner, but he argued for dismissal of the charge, citing his history of mental health issues. He withdrew that bid after the court heard evidence that he was not suffering a significant depressive illness.His lawyer then called for the conviction to be dismissed on the grounds that Mr. Kyrgios would face a greater harm from it than an ordinary defendant. The magistrate agreed, effectively dismissing the charge and allowing Mr. Kyrgios to walk away without a conviction or a criminal record.The seriousness of the matter was “low-level,” the magistrate, Beth Campbell, said, adding that she did not think the tennis star was likely to offend again.The unexpected chain of events in the packed courtroom stemmed from an altercation in January 2021, in which Mr. Kyrgios was accused of having shoved Chiara Passari, his former partner, during a dispute when she tried to prevent him from leaving in an Uber.The couple briefly split after the alleged incident, then reconciled. Ms. Passari, an Australian model, did not report the matter to the police until they had separated once again, in December 2021.In a post on Instagram after the hearing, Mr. Kyrgios thanked the court for dismissing the charge, cited mental health difficulties at the time of the incident and thanked his friends, family and new partner, Costeen Hatzi.“I was not in a good place when this happened, and I reacted to a difficult situation in a way I deeply regret,” he said. “I know I wasn’t OK, and I’m sincerely sorry for the hurt I caused.”“Mental health is tough,” he said, adding: “I now plan to focus on recovering from injury and moving forward in the best way possible.”Common assault, the charge brought against Mr. Kyrgios, is the least serious assault charge in Australia, and indicates that the victim experienced immediate, unlawful violence, or the threat of it, though not bodily injury. Ms. Passari had reported shoulder pain and a grazed knee after the altercation.Known for his outbursts on and off the court and for his mercurial, magnetic playing style, Mr. Kyrgios has become a kind of folk hero in his native Australia for pushing boundaries with his behavior. On Friday, he had arrived at court on crutches after recently undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery.Last month, he was awaiting a warm welcome on home turf at the Australian Open, the first major tennis tournament of the year. He withdrew a little more than 24 hours before his scheduled first-round match because of a knee injury, which resulted in the surgery. More

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      Nick Kyrgios Withdraws From Australian Open With Knee Injury

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      Kyrgios, the temperamental star who was a finalist at Wimbledon last year, had battled soreness in his left knee but was hoping to play.MELBOURNE, Australia — After spending the past week receiving all the laurels of a hometown favorite, Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the Australian Open on Monday with a knee injury, a little more than 24 hours ahead of his scheduled first-round match.In an interview Friday, Kyrgios, the temperamental Australian star who was a finalist at Wimbledon last year, said he had been battling soreness in his left knee during the off-season, but he expected to be able to play in the year’s first Grand Slam.Those hopes took a turn for the worse Friday after a charity match with Novak Djokovic.“Extremely disappointed,” Kyrgios said during a news conference Monday afternoon at Melbourne Park. “Pretty brutal. One of the most important tournaments of my career.”After climbing from outside the top 100 in 2021 to play deep into two Grand Slam tournaments last year, Kyrgios was among the favorites heading into the Australian Open, where he won the men’s doubles title last year with his fellow Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis.The first sign that things were not going as planned emerged in late December, when Kyrgios pulled out of the United Cup, a team competition, just before the start of the event. He then withdrew from an Australian Open tuneup tournament in Adelaide, hoping he would be healthy enough by the start of the Australian Open this week.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.A Waiting Game: Tennis matches can last a long time. Here’s how players waiting to take the court for the next match stay sharp.Will Maher, Kyrgios’s longtime physiotherapist, said during the Monday news conference that Kyrgios underwent a magnetic resonance imaging test last week that revealed both a cyst and a slight tear in his meniscus. Maher said Kyrgios would go home to Canberra for a procedure later this week. He will spend February rehabilitating the knee and is hoping to be healthy enough to play in March in the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.“There’s a parameniscal cyst growing in his left meniscus, which is the result of a small tear in his lateral meniscus,” Maher said. “It’s not a significant injury in the sense that it’s going to be career-threatening, or anything like that.”Maher said Kyrgios had done everything he could to be able to compete. Last week, he underwent a procedure to drain the cyst. He also received injections to relieve the pressure, and while there was temporary relief, the soreness increased in recent days. Maher said playing could risk creating a more significant injury, such as a tear in his anterior cruciate ligament, or A.C.L.Kyrgios said that as soon as he lost in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in September, his mind shifted to the Australian Open, where he liked his chances on hardcourts in front of raucous home crowds.“I always wanted to just do everything right and train right and tick every box, and just be ready,” Kyrgios said. He added: “Obviously, this coming around is just bad timing. But that’s life. Injury is a part of the sport.”He said he was confident that he would be able to regain the form that made him one of the world’s most feared players, but surgery is the only way to get there.“Every time I land on serve or push off my serve, you can see on the side of my knee there’s like a little lump,” he said. “That lump will eventually just get bigger and bigger. There’s pressure on my knee, obviously hinders my movement. The only real way to get rid of it is to open up and then just get rid of it.”Kyrgios has another serious issue to deal with in Canberra in the coming weeks.In early February, he is due in court to face a charge of common assault stemming from an altercation with an ex-girlfriend, Chiara Passari, in December 2021. Kyrgios has declined to discuss the matter since it became public during his run to the Wimbledon final in July.Common assault is the least serious assault charge in Australia, but it implies that the victim experienced immediate, unlawful violence, or the threat of it, though not bodily injury. Kyrgios’s lawyers have said they will mount a defense focused on mental illness, citing his history of depression and substance abuse, struggles Kyrgios has said will always be with him but that he now has under control. If the court accepts this defense and dismisses the case, it could then decide to impose a treatment plan. The maximum penalty for common assault is two years’ imprisonment. More

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      Nick Kyrgios Is Coming for Tennis

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      Update: On Monday, a little more than 24 hours ahead of his scheduled first-round match, Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the Australian Open with a knee injury.MELBOURNE, Australia — Nick Kyrgios is finally home.He is in Australia, with his people and in the place he longs for during all those homesick months living out of a suitcase on the professional tennis road.For months, he soaked up the sun and trained in Sydney. But he also squeezed in a bit of time, though never enough for his liking, on the black couch in his childhood home in Canberra, Australia’s quiet, rural capital, telling his mother how safe he feels while she drinks tea a few feet away in the kitchen. He could sleep in his old room, where his cherished collection of colorful basketball shoes lines the shelves. That is next to the room with hundreds of his trophies and plaques and dozens of his smashed rackets. His pet macaw is in an aviary out back. Mornings bring brisk, 12-kilometer walks with his father, his golden retriever King and his miniature Dachshund Quincy, up nearby Mount Majura.He hit balls, and lifted weights, goofed around with and gave endless swag to the children at the tennis center in Lyneham where he got his start. Like many in Australia — and lots of other places these days — they worship their local folk hero, no matter how boorish and aggressive he can be in the heat of competition, or when a live microphone appears at his chin. Or maybe that’s why they do.Now though, everything is suddenly different.Last year, Kyrgios evolved from a temperamental talent with so much unrealized potential into the kind of transcendent showman that this supposedly genteel sport offers up every so often — the gifted bad boy who drives the tennis establishment mad but enthralls crowds in the late stages of the most important championships.At the U.S. Open, Kyrgios beat the top seed and defending champion, Daniil Medvedev.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesFans cheered for Kyrgios at last year’s Australian Open.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesWhether the tennis establishment likes it or not, no one in the sport fills a stadium like Kyrgios these days. Even his doubles matches have become raucous, packed affairs. And as the Australian Open gets underway, Kyrgios is among the favorites to challenge the nine-time champion Novak Djokovic for his home slam, which may be the ultimate double-edged sword. That level of pressure and expectation has been kryptonite for Kyrgios before, his self-destructive psyche exploding at a crucial moment, producing his unique brand of irresistible tennis theater.“It’s going to be a hard couple weeks, regardless of whether I win or lose, emotionally, mentally,” Kyrgios said in a pre-Christmas interview from his parents’ home. “I’m one of the players that has a scope lens on him all the time. Big target on my back.” With all his recent success and notoriety, so much suddenly appears to be riding on Kyrgios. The game’s leaders see him as the rare player who can reach a new and younger audience. Fans raise their beers and bump chests as Kyrgios wins points with his signature trick shots through the legs and behind the back. They wear basketball jerseys when they watch him and when they play, just as he does, and they turn his matches, even the doubles contests, into something like a rowdy night at a U.F.C. bout.“He brings something different,” said Andrea Gaudenzi, a former pro who is now the chairman of the A.T.P. Tour, which is the men’s professional circuit.Ken Solomon, chairman and chief executive of the Tennis Channel, the sport’s leading media partner, called Kyrgios “ground zero” in efforts to attract fans who have never touched a racket and perhaps never will. On Friday, Netflix released “Break Point,” its documentary series on pro tennis that the sport hopes will do for it what “Drive to Survive” did for Formula 1. The premiere episode focused almost exclusively on Kyrgios, who took a signature victory lap on Twitter.Tennis Australia announced last week that Kyrgios would play Djokovic in a charity exhibition Friday evening. Tickets sold out in 58 minutes.Before his exhibition match with Djokovic, Kyrgios hobnobbed with clients of a luxury hotel chain during a promotional table tennis game.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThree hours before the match, he hobnobbed with the top clients of a luxury hotel chain during a promotional table tennis game. Before the event started, he sat alone in a quiet hallway, feeling the pressure of what lay ahead. Moments later, holding a racket in a packed rooftop bar, the bright eyes and big smile of the star entertainer emerged.Leaning on Kyrgios as a pitchman for the game also carries plenty of risk. What makes him so irresistible, that at any time he might produce another can’t-miss moment on the court, has at times made him a walking grenade. And he’s the one with a finger on the pin.There is also the allegation of domestic violence.In early February, Kyrgios is due in court in Canberra to face a charge of common assault stemming from an altercation with an ex-girlfriend, Chiara Passari, in December 2021. Kyrgios has declined to discuss the matter since it became public during his run to the Wimbledon final in July.Common assault is the least serious assault charge in Australia, but it implies that the victim experienced immediate, unlawful violence, or the threat of it, though not bodily injury. Kyrgios’s lawyers have said they will mount a defense focused on mental illness, citing his history of depression and substance abuse, struggles Kyrgios has said will always be with him but that he now has under control. If the court accepts this defense and dismisses the case, it could then decide to impose a treatment plan. The maximum penalty for common assault is two years’ imprisonment.The incident occurred during the first weeks of Kyrgios’s relationship with his now constant companion, Costeen Hatzi, whom he met online. He had also just recommitted himself fully to tennis after years of ambivalence and mental turmoil. The sport had brought riches and fame but also loneliness, with its endless travel and solitary battles on the court, which tortured his psyche.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe withering criticism and racist attacks he endured when he lost matches he was expected to win, or broke rackets and berated tennis officials, triggered memories of those years before a growth spurt at 17 turned him into a strapping, 6-foot-4 elite athlete. As an overweight boy with dark skin and modest means in an overwhelmingly white country where everyone seemed to have more, he was mocked and bullied, despite his talent for tennis, or maybe because of it.Goran Ivanisevic, the Wimbledon champion who coaches Djokovic, has called Kyrgios a “tennis genius.” Kyrgios’s father, Giorgos, first noticed that skill when Kyrgios was a toddler hitting a ball hanging on a string from a metal pole. He never missed. Soon Kyrgios was learning the sport on dilapidated courts near his parents’ home in Canberra. His father, a house painter from Greece, would hit a bucket of balls with him after work.“Still wears the same overalls he walked off the boat in,” Kyrgios said of his father, who still paints houses. “He must have been exhausted.”His mother, Norlaila, who is from Malaysia and worked as a software engineer for health care organizations, would drive for hours to get him and his brother to tournaments. They stayed at backpacker hostels and tried to stretch $20 to cover dinner for him and his siblings at cheap Indian restaurants in the countryside.His parents knew next to nothing about tennis. Tennis Australia and the tennis authority for his provincial region worked to fill in the gaps, and Kyrgios notched his breakthrough win at 19, when he upset Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2014.Kyrgios’s breakthrough came at 19, when he beat Rafael Nadal in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2014.via Getty ImagesIt nearly ruined him. After that win and all the expectations it produced, Kyrgios thought he had to solve every problem on his own. When he couldn’t, he lashed out, at tennis officials, the media and the people around him.Then, last fall, after a year in which he flirted with quitting but also showed flickers of his magical game, Kyrgios began to realize he didn’t have to do it all alone. He could talk about his fears and insecurities and the fragility of his mind to the people closest to him, and they could help.“Knowing that I am not alone anymore and I can kind of open up and talk to people, now that’s a big one for me,” he said. “It’s OK to, you know, feel like having to cry some days.”He also decided he was tired of letting himself and others down. Before last year’s Australian Open, he embarked on the kind of solid six-week training block he had not done in years. He played with top opponents for 90 minutes each day and hit the weight room. He spent two hours several times a week playing full-court basketball, his true love, with top Australian players to hone his conditioning.Asked for a scouting report on his hoops game, he put it like this:“Loves shooting mid-rangers.” “Can shoot a three-ball pretty good.” “Play like a wing.” “In the corner.” “Come off picks.” “Pretty versatile.” “Can guard a big.” “Pretty physical.” “Like Tobias Harris in his prime.”He also ate better, and he focused on getting more rest instead of more drinks.By the end of January, with Thanasi Kokkinakis, his countryman and childhood friend, he had won the doubles title for his first Grand Slam championship. Then he mostly stuck to the healthier living through Wimbledon, where he once had to be dragged from a pub at 4 a.m. on the morning of a match. Not this time, though his sublime tennis did come with multiple confrontations with chair umpires and a tense verbal-sparring match with Stefanos Tsitsipas, during which Tsitsipas tried to hit Kyrgios with a ball.Kyrgios won the Australian Open men’s doubles title last year with his friend Thanasi Kokkinakis.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesKyrgios had a few confrontations with chair umpires at Wimbledon this year but reached his first Grand Slam singles final there.Hannah Mckay/ReutersHe fell to Djokovic in the final in four sets, but he remained disciplined through the U.S. Open. There, he obliterated the top seed and defending champion, Daniil Medvedev, in the fourth round before suffering an upset loss to Karen Khachanov of Russia in the quarterfinals. Exhausted from the season and from playing mostly at night so broadcasters could maximize the television audience, he caught the first flight home and played just one more singles tournament.Kyrgios will play Roman Safiullin, an unheralded Russian, in the first round Tuesday.What happens now?Tennis, like few other sports, is an M.R.I. of the soul. Kyrgios knows he will never pursue the game with the clinical efficiency and emotional discipline that Nadal and Djokovic have showcased for so long. He is going to throw and break rackets. It’s a manifestation of how much he cares, he said, and for him to thrive, tennis has to be about who he is, someone who plays with emotion, instinct and improvisation, like a jazz solo rather than a symphony.If he can do that, maybe he can find peace on the court, even when the pressure brings the stress of a near-explosion that keeps his mother, too worried about what will happen, from being able to watch.“Not many people can say that they have become a Slam threat, they are going to have the support of the nation, well, the support of some of the nation behind him,” he said. “Just got to try to enjoy it.”For Kyrgios, that has always been the toughest task of all. More

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      Nick Kyrgios’s U.S. Open Run Ends One Match After Beating the Top Seed

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      Karen Khachanov of Russia needed five sets to put Kyrgios away, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-7, 6-4. He will play Casper Ruud of Norway in the semifinals on Friday.For the third consecutive day, one of the top-seeded men or a heavy favorite exited the 2022 U.S. Open.In a match that began Tuesday night and ended in the small hours Wednesday morning, Nick Kyrgios lost to Karen Khachanov of Russia in five sets in a duel between two of the hardest hitters in the game, but also two players whose minds have often gotten in the way of the success that so many predicted for them when they were teenagers.The loss, punctuated with him smashing rackets on the court as he has often done, left Kyrgios as sad as he has been in a long while, sadder than after he lost the Wimbledon final earlier this summer.“I feel like I’ve let so many people down,” he said. “It’s just devastating. Like, it’s heartbreaking. Not just for me, but for everyone that I know that wants me to win.”Khachanov won the three-hour, 39-minute scrap, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-7, 6-4. Kyrgios looked to have the momentum after taking the fourth-set tiebreaker, but he lost his serve in the opening game of the fifth set and never recovered.“Crazy match,” Khachanov, the No. 27 seed, said in his on-court interview. He will face Casper Ruud of Norway, the No. 5 seed, in the semifinals.For Kyrgios, the talented but temperamental Australian, the loss came two nights after he eliminated the top seed and the defending champion, Daniil Medvedev, another Russian. On Monday, Rafael Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion, lost in fourth sets to Frances Tiafoe, a rising American.Nadal’s loss was less of a surprise than Medvedev’s, especially because few would have been shocked if the two had met in the finals had they landed on opposite sides of the draw. The surprise was how efficiently the 23rd-seeded Kyrgios had steam-rolled Medvedev, who is widely recognized as the world’s top hardcourt player, in the third and fourth sets.The performance was among the best matches Kyrgios, 27, has ever played at a Grand Slam tournament, if not the best. In those final two sets, in game after game, Kyrgios all but hit Medvedev off the court, except when he was confusing and frustrating Medvedev with his drop shots and touch volleys. There was little doubt when the match ended that if Kyrgios could continue playing at that level, it was unlikely anyone in the field would be capable of stopping him from winning his first Grand Slam singles title in a career marked by wild swings of brilliance and blowups.The only consistencies in Kyrgios’s game and the mind that rules it though are their unpredictability, and how irresistible tennis fans find it.Khachanov reached his first Grand Slam semifinal.Elsa/Getty ImagesGoran Ivanisevic, the 2001 Wimbledon champion who now coaches Novak Djokovic, has described Kyrgios as a “tennis genius.” But just when it appears that Kyrgios has everything locked in — his massive serve, his blistering forehand, his deceptively quick movement, his breathtaking touch, his combustible temper — something goes awry.Against Khachanov, the inability to find anything close to the near-perfection he had reached against Medvedev doomed him. Kyrgios was just slightly off, and against a far inferior opponent. Shots that normally burn the lines drifted beyond them. Shots that usually zip over the net on a wire slammed into the tape, or even the middle of the net in the lesser moments. He struggled all night to crack the code of Khachanov’s serve, especially on his rare chances to break it.At one point, he got so frustrated with his inability to get off a quality return that he swatted at the balls as though he was trying to kill a fly with a swatter. After losing two golden chances to break Khachanov’s serve late in the third set, he smashed his racket on the ground and later smacked a television camera with his hand.The tide appeared to turn three games later, when Kyrgios stroked a series of easy rally balls into the middle of the net, giving the crucial third set to Khachanov. Kyrgios went up a break in the fourth set, gave it back, then prevailed in the tiebreaker, but that brief stumble early in the fifth set cost him the match.Khachanov, 26, was not perfect, but he was as good as he needed to be, serving hard, working enough points around to his smooth and powerful forehand, and attacking as soon as he could find an opening. He also kept his emotions in check, even as the crowd rallied behind Kyrgios — New York has always loved a showman — and heckled the Russian. He waited for Kyrgios to grow frustrated enough to want to get off the court and get home to Australia.Kyrgios never got there, though he had ample opportunity. Instead he fought to the bitter end, whipping forehands and pounding serves, moaning as he chased down shots against a stubborn player who managed to come up with his own big serves when needed, including on the final point, one last bomb down the middle of the court. Moments later, Kyrgios smashed two rackets on the side of the court.Kyrgios’s immediate future is uncertain. He loathes the time away from his home and his family that the sport requires. His mother has been ailing. A court hearing has also been scheduled in early October for Kyrgios to face a charge of assaulting his former girlfriend in Canberra last December. Kyrgios has not commented on the charges. He could face prison if convicted.He has long had an ambivalent relationship with tennis. He played little during the early days of the pandemic, choosing not to travel the world to play in empty stadiums. Then, in January, he won the Australian Open doubles title with his longtime friend Thanasi Kokkinakis.The victory both lit a fire in Kyrgios and also taught him how much commitment and energy playing a Grand Slam to the finish over two weeks required. He skipped the clay court season because he hates playing on the surface, then took over Wimbledon, becoming the talk of the tournament with his sublime play and his antics, which included fights with officials and taunting Stefanos Tsitsipas into submission. In the finals he lost in four sets to Djokovic, who won his 21st Grand Slam singles title.Kyrgios said if he had won Wimbledon, he might have struggled to find a reason to keep playing tennis. The sport, and the expectations that had been placed on him when he burst onto the scene as a 19-year-old, have tortured him, and driven him to alcohol abuse.This U.S. Open offered him the best opportunity of his career to win a Grand Slam singles title. Djokovic’s refusal to receive a vaccination for Covid-19 prevented him from entering the country to participate, and then Nadal had been eliminated in the fourth round.As Kyrgios took the court Tuesday night, no one who had won a Grand Slam title was left in the draw, and he was playing some of the best tennis of his life, until he wasn’t any longer. More

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      Nick Kyrgios Is Having a Very Good U.S. Open. Make That Summer.

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      The often tortured tennis player said he was “really sick of letting people down,” after beating No. 1 ranked Daniil Medvedev to advance to the quarterfinals.His tennis, always sublime some of the time, has been sublime far more of the time.There is no arguing with Nick Kyrgios’s recent results: a first-time Grand Slam singles final at Wimbledon in July; a singles title in Washington, D.C., in August; and now a best-ever run to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in September after outclassing the defending champion Daniil Medvedev, starting and finishing with an ace down the T and knocking the Russian from the No. 1 spot.“I was just really sick of letting people down,” he said after his victory, 7-6 (11), 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, over Medvedev on Sunday night. “I feel like I’m making people proud now. I feel there’s not as much negative things being said about me. I just wanted to turn the narrative around almost. That’s basically it. I just was feeling so depressed all the time, so feeling sorry for myself. I just wanted to change that.”It is good to see a gifted tennis player making fuller use of his gifts. Good to hear an oft-tormented man sound like he has found, for now, a measure of peace, though Kyrgios is still no Zen master; still no angel.Off court, he faces charges of assault from a former girlfriend and a court hearing in Australia scheduled for next month, as well as a defamation suit in England, brought by a British fan that Kyrgios claimed “was drunk out of her mind” during one of his Wimbledon matches.On court, he is still a magnet for fines (and fans) at age 27 and a combustible, foul-mouthed racket smasher with a nasty spitting habit, all of which makes the Kyrgios show less than ideal family entertainment.He tossed a few more rackets on Sunday night as he beat Medvedev for the fourth time in their five matches and for the first time in a major tournament. He also, as so often, directed a few more oaths at his support team even as they gave him nothing but encouragement.“Stay focused Nick!”“No negative energy, man!”“You can do it!”Yes, he could. His victory over Medvedev was an often-dazzling mix of power and finesse.Thunderous serves followed by feathery drop shots that an out-of-sorts Medvedev was unable to reach or control despite his foot speed and big wingspan at 6-foot-6.Deft backhand chips that just barely cleared the net followed by fully ripped forehand winners on the move.Patient backcourt exchanges followed by serve-and-volley to keep Medvedev from camping out behind the baseline to return.Krygios has all the shots and though he is still without a formal coach, he said he has tried to address his weaknesses this year by improving his fitness, his second-serve variety and above all his forehand return.Kyrgios, left, had more support from the crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium than his opponent Daniil Medvedev.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesWhat makes him so tough to neutralize on a night like Sunday are the abrupt shifts in rhythm and tactics. It is hard, even for a supreme defender and pace absorber like Medvedev, to settle in for long. It is the upside of Kyrgios’s short attention span: a resistance to routine.What also made Kyrgios tough to beat was his refusal to implode even if he seemed to be reaching a boil in the opening set, the pièce de résistance of this particular tennis spectacle.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.The latest sellout crowd of nearly 24,000 could sense the danger, too, and though there were a few Medvedev fans in attendance, it was much easier to hear the Kyrgios supporters, who know their man at this stage.“Come on Nick!”“Keep it together!”“Don’t get distracted!”With coaching from the stands allowed on a trial basis at this year’s U.S. Open, Kyrgios had no shortage of volunteer coaches, and it seemed they sensed the precarity of this state of tennis grace.Medvedev had three set points in the tiebreaker. Kyrgios saved them all and then failed to convert three set points of his own.After faltering on the second point, he screamed at his team, using an expletive: “Tell me where to serve!” After the third, he wheeled and spiked his racket. But on the next point, he hit a perfectly weighted drop shot winner, and then secured the set when Medvedev missed a forehand wide with a passing lane available.In the third set, with Medvedev serving in the second game at 30-all, Kyrgios fired a forehand passing shot that Medvedev could only deflect with his racket, sending the ball high in the air on his own side of the net. Kyrgios watched its flight and then, presumably sensing a chance to entertain, ran past the net post and, before the ball landed, knocked it past Medvedev into the open court, wagging his index finger triumphantly.There was only one problem: It is against the rules to strike a ball in the air on your opponent’s side of the net unless it has first bounced on your side and then spun back. Instead of break point for Kyrgios, it was 40-30 for Medvedev, who went on to hold serve.It was a bonehead move, as Kyrgios would concede later, but again, no Kyrgios implosion — only banter with his box. “I thought it was legal when I did it,” he said, while sweeping the next three games to take command of the match for good.As a result, men’s tennis is guaranteed to have a new No. 1 after the U.S. Open.“Not going to cry in the room, but I’m a little bit disappointed,” Medvedev said.It has been a strange and unsettled season for the Russian star. He blew a two-set lead in the Australian Open final and lost to Rafael Nadal, was banned from Wimbledon because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and then ran into Kyrgios in New York on a night when Medvedev said he was feeling slightly ill and low on energy down the stretch.But he conceded that he had been feeling fine when Kyrgios beat him last month in the second round of the National Bank Open in Montreal.Kyrgios’s four-set victory over Medvedev was equal parts power and finesse.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesThe new No. 1 after the U.S. Open could be Nadal, who has been there before but never at age 36. It could also be 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz or 23-year-old Casper Ruud.Nadal and Marin Cilic, who faces Alcaraz in the fourth round on Monday night, are the only men left in the draw who have won the U.S. Open or, for that matter, any major singles title.Medvedev thinks Kyrgios has a shot to join them, and it is tempting to agree.“He’s tough to play,” Medvedev said. “He has an amazing serve, but from the baseline it’s not like when the point starts, you know you have the advantage.”Medvedev continued: “If he plays like this ’till the end of the tournament, he has all the chances to win it, but he’s going to get tough opponents.”Next up in Kyrgios’s first U.S. Open quarterfinal is another Russian, Karen Khachanov. Win Tuesday and Kyrgios would face either Matteo Berrettini or Ruud in the semifinals.Despite Kyrgios’s often-glittering record against highly ranked players, he is 1-1 against Khachanov and Ruud and 0-1 against Berrettini.But Kyrgios, never at his best in New York until now, looked inspired for much of Sunday night with the big crowd mostly in his corner and showing love for his flashy shotmaking.“I hadn’t won a match on Ashe before this week, and now I’ve won two against two quality opponents,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been able to showcase. There’s a lot of celebrities here, a lot of important people here watching. I wanted to get on that court and show them I am able to put my head down and play and win these big matches.”Stay inspired, whatever the reasons, and he just might pull this off. He certainly is looking for a reward before he heads back to Australia after being on the road for several months with his girlfriend Costeen Hatzi.“We’ve got to try and just tough it out and keep pushing each other, keep being positive,” he said. “We do realize it’s next week we’re going home, but three more matches potentially, then we never have to play tennis again.”A throwaway line or a promise? Kyrgios, like his serve, is not always easy to read. More

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      Nick Kyrgios Upsets No. 1 Daniil Medvedev at the U.S. Open

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      Medvedev grew frustrated in a four-set loss that ensured neither singles draws will have a repeat winner this year. Kyrgios will play another Russian, No. 27 Karen Khachanov, in the quarterfinals.Nick Kyrgios’s finest season continues to get finer, and on Sunday he defeated No. 1 Daniil Medvedev, the defending U.S. Open men’s singles champion, 7-6 (11), 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, with a deeply convincing display of power and finesse to reach his first quarterfinal in New York.Sunday’s fourth-round match was played at breakneck pace and peaked in terms of mutual quality of play in its torrid opening set. Both men appealed to the sellout crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium for support and both saved three set points before Kyrgios secured it after 63 minutes.But though Medvedev, who will lose his No. 1 ranking after the U.S. Open, rebounded to win the second set, Kyrgios quickly took command, breaking serve in the fourth game of the third set after Medvedev jumped out to a 40-0 lead. Kyrgios, a combustible Australian who threw his racket several times in frustration on Sunday, controlled the big points and his own service games from there and finished off the victory with his 21st ace.“I’m just glad I’m finally able to show New York my talent,” Kyrgios said in his on-court interview.In terms of seedings it was an upset. Medvedev is No. 1. Kyrgios is No. 23. But it did not feel like an upset. Kyrgios now leads their head-to-head series 4-1 and has been playing the most consistent quality tennis of his career in recent months at age 27.He reached his first Grand Slam singles final at Wimbledon in July, losing a close match to Novak Djokovic, and backed that up by winning the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. last month and by beating Medvedev in the second round of the National Bank Open in Montreal.Medvedev, the top seed in the men’s draw, won’t repeat as U.S. Open champion.Corey Sipkin/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut for Kyrgios, despite his serve and fast-court skills, the U.S. Open has long been a stumbling block. In eight previous appearances, he had not been past the third round. This year, he is into the quarterfinals with a fine chance to go further. His next opponent will be Karen Khachanov, the No. 27 seed from Russia. The other quarterfinal in the top half of the men’s draw will match No. 13 Matteo Berrettini of Italy against No. 5 Casper Ruud of Norway.None of the four has won a major singles title, and if Kyrgios can maintain the level he displayed on Sunday, he is certainly a threat to any man still in contention at the U.S. Open.“I want to go all the way, and hopefully it’s possible,” Kyrgios said. More