Apparently, there are only five things you need to do to win Wimbledon, Nick Kyrgios: beat Richard Gasquet, Stan Wawrinka, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray – and, as one of your compatriots sitting courtside said the other day, “pull your head in”.
The growing perception that the strong-minded young Australian from his country’s most boring city, Canberra, is in danger of becoming “a bit of a tool” – as a columnist in the Sydney Morning Herald put it so delicately the other day – might be harsh, but it is not going to go away. Mud sticks.
An Australian television station canvassed views among British tennis writers in the first week and it was clear that Kyrgios, after barely a year in the unforgiving glare of a sometimes brutal media examination, has divided opinion from Melbourne to London. Those craving “a character”, someone to market, to save tennis from descending into post-Federer-Murray-Nadal-Djokovic boredom, can’t get enough of his freewheeling antics and exuberant tennis. Others – older and stuffier in his youthful reckoning, probably – who remember the dignity that Rod Laver and his generation brought to the game think he is, well, see above.
I would like to have a bit each-way on him coming through this – but maybe not for a year or two. He’s still struggling with his celebrity, whatever he might think to the contrary, in his laid-back, knowing way.
When Kyrgios drawls “Nah” to the question of whether or not he cares what people think about him, it does not ring true. He might be rich and getting richer ($1.36m in three years on the Tour), he might be the star turn in the locker room, he might even win this Wimbledon, but the advice from the stands during a match last week to basically get on with it and stop complaining disturbed him. “I didn’t find it funny,” he told us later.
So he is not as impassive to criticism as his drooped eyelids and air of indifference in front of reporters that night might have suggested – at least not to his friends, among them the American Jack Sock, who was standing at the back of the room, swapping knowing smirks.
A lot of the players like Kyrgios. Murray is an admirer. Roger Federer has hit with him. Wawrinka, who chased him in vain all summer to share a practice court, likes his cheek. Stan thinks Nick loves to wind up the press. There is no harm in that – if you can take it, as well.
Everyone would like to cut the kid a bit of slack. He is, after all, a special talent. If fit, he can beat Gasquet in the fourth round. He might take Wawrinka, the French Open champion who looks as strong as a bull after three matches, to a fourth or fifth set. He will not beat Djokovic – and nor would he beat Murray in the final.
But one day he could. Those fine players are in their late 20s and early 30s, and Kyrgios left his teenagehood behind him only three months ago – which will come as no surprise to anyone who has endured his often withering sarcasm.
Some critics have compared him to one of his biggest fans, John McEnroe, but that is misleading. Superbrat could be sullen on and off the court.
When Kyrgios has a racket in his hand he is at his happiest, “having fun” as he has repeatedly described it, and he is a joy to watch: eccentric, courageous in the shot, inventive and – when not being appallingly rude to officials – entertaining fans with the sort of easy banter you would hear in a park or on a beach, but rarely in the down-to-business surroundings of Centre Court.
He is also capable of perceptive analysis of his sport – when he can be bothered to answer questions about it. The players he admires are the showmen who express themselves on court, particularly Gaël Monfils, who wears his genius far more lightly. Maybe he should have a chat with the Frenchman.
Back in the boring grown-up world, Djokovic remains favourite to win here. The defending champion has had fewer anxious moments than either Murray or Federer, his main rivals alongside Wawrinka, who he will probably meet in the semi-finals, and is disturbingly relaxed, usually a sign that his mind and body are in sync – and that is not always the case.
And, if Djokovic were to play Kyrgios in the semi-finals? For as long as it lasted, it would not be dull.
