Let's be honest the only reason he made that Wimbledon final was the Russian ban, the super easy draw to the semifinal and Nadal withdrawal. Kyrgios is somebody who never took his career serious so I never took him serious. Kyrgios obviously had enough talent to be a serious threat for many, many years. But he pissed his career away by not taking it serious. That's on him.

 

This. Fourth round vs Nakashima, QF vs Garin, SF ret.

 

He has a very high ceiling. We all know his performances haven't done his talent justice, for a variety of reasons, but mostly mental.

I think it's fairly obvious an on form and firing Kyrgios plays at a top ten and possibly top five level.

 

He has a very high ceiling. We all know his performances haven't done his talent justice, for a variety of reasons, but mostly mental.

I think it's fairly obvious an on form and firing Kyrgios plays at a top ten and possibly top five level.

Definitely a Top 10 player on his day, I've seen Top 5 stuff in individual matches definitely but a variety of factors would have to take place to ensure that happens for Nick and unfortunately it just doesn't come together often and sometimes more then a match at a time.

 

One of the most talented players ever without a doubt. His serve is the best in history, his forehand a really lethal weapon, also has a very solid BH and footwork. Problem is he just didn't care much about Tennis, had no passion at all and wanted to do the bare minimum to collect paychecks, still dude reached a GS Final without giving a fuck, this is one of the most impressive achievements in history, maybe only behind Zverev reaching GS Final with type 1 diabetes.

 

Incredibly overrated talent. Even his biggest achievements need added context. The slam final and his performances against the big 3 + Murray.

The run to the Wimbledon final was a draw from heaven and he still almost made a mess of it, barely escaping Paul Jubb and Brandon Nakashima. His "best" win was against Tsitsipas who has done nothing at Wimbledon other than suffer some fairly embarrassing losses.

His 2 wins over Djokovic were during Novak's worst form slump of his career. His only win against Federer (from 7 matches) was a bunch of tiebreakers on high altitude clay. His only win against Murray (from 7 matches) was Murray's first match in 12 months. His signature win against Nadal at Wimbledon was sandwiched between Nadal's losses to Rosol, Darcis and Dustin Brown.

I guess you could say his W/L record against Medvedev, Zverev and Tsitsipas is kinda impressive but that's about it. He's still nowhere near as special as advertised.

 

The run to the Wimbledon final was a draw from heaven and he still almost made a mess of it, barely escaping Paul Jubb and Brandon Nakashima. His "best" win was against Tsitsipas who has done nothing at Wimbledon other than suffer some fairly embarrassing losses.

... This!

Muster & Chesnokov I swear could've made a good fist of it at Wimbledon with the draw he had.

 

He's lazy and mentally weak, simple as that.

He can still win Wimbledon in the next 2-3 years if he dedicates himself...he can have his Goran moment, and all will be redeemed.

Comparison with Philippoussis is correct. A very poor man's Safin

 

"He can still win Wimbledon in the next 2-3 years if he dedicates himself..."

Didn't happen for a younger pre-injury Kyrgios, so will 100% not happen for a post-prime post-injury Kyrgios either. In addition to the injuries, Kyrgios will simply never dedicate himself the extent needed to win Grand Slams. Other top guys work harder than him, both in developing their games as well as their bodies. Kyrgios' likely future is remaining still a dangerous floater in early rounds behind that massive serve, but no contender.

 

2022 was Kyrgios's best year and that was when he publicly admitted he was essentially doing everything he could to squeeze out every drop of potential he had. He was training right, eating right, committing to the sport and about as focused as you're gonna find him. It's not impossible to conceive that a world in which Kyrgios commits 24/7 to the sport, and has a Nadal-like discipline for a decade, may win a couple of slams and gets to the top 5 at some point.

However, discipline has and always will be his issue and that also had to be taken into consideration as part of his overall make-up. He has the attention span of a child hopped up on ice cream and that will always be a negative in any professional sport. You take that away from him, you perhaps take some of what makes him special when he's on it.

 

And he lost to Khachanov at the USO with Ruud awaiting in the SF. He would've fumbled chances to win big events no matter how dedicated he was. He is/was a dangerous player you'd prefer not to draw early in a tournament. Nothing more.

 

He is an incredibly dangerous floater.

He managed to beat Nadal three times. Djokovic two times.

Says it all.

He isn‘t consistent, but it doesn‘t change the fact he is very uncomfortable to play.

 

If kyrigos had had the hunger, passion and maturity of the big 3 he would've won multiple slams. But he didn't so he didn't.

 

Let's be honest the only reason he made that Wimbledon final was the Russian ban, the super easy draw to the semifinal and Nadal withdrawal. Kyrgios is somebody who never took his career serious so I never took him serious. Kyrgios obviously had enough talent to be a serious threat for many, many years. But he pissed his career away by not taking it serious. That's on him.

This. Fourth round vs Nakashima, QF vs Garin, SF ret.

To add: Zverev out after the RG ankle injury. Berrettini (the previous year's finalist, that and the previous year's Queen's Club winner, and also that year's Stuttgart winner) out after testing positive for Covid. One of the weakest paths of all time. A SF W/O (!) the icing on the cake.

 

To add: Zverev out after the RG ankle injury. Berrettini (the previous year's finalist, that and the previous year's Queen's Club winner, and also that year's Stuttgart winner) out after testing positive for Covid. One of the weakest paths of all time. A SF W/O (!) the icing on the cake.

Not Kyrgios's fault that Nadal chickened out and gave a walkover.
BTW the Wimbledon runners-up of 2002, 2004 and 2006 had even easier draws.

 

I am still on the firm belief that he will return but for the most part his career is towards the end.

I want to focus on his playing ability over any other distractions.

Some people go as far as saying he was a wasted GOAT chance if he had his mental game going; I don't have that opinion - at all.

As a person, I don't like him at all but this will be as unbiased as possible.

Yes, what goes on mentally on court could have a huge say in underperformance but I want to be as fair as possible and not go into that too much even though mental IQ has a lot to do with it.

His career turned out similar to Mark Phillipoussis; A fellow Greek player of the 90's and 00's - Difference are that Mark made 2 finals versus Nick's 1 but Nick does have a Doubles Title.

"The Poo" as he was or is affectionally known was capable of beating the best players at select times; Very rarely was it as Grand Slam level however (when it truly counted).

His biggest win was probably Indian Wells over Moya.

Back onto Nick, his biggest win would of been over Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon.

But looking at his Grand Slam performance timeline - He has reached the QF's minimally 4 times in 30 at just a 13% success rate.


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Based on those statistics, making the Final of Wimbledon was massively exceeding expectation; Maybe back in 2014/2015 we expected Nick to maybe win a Slam or two but by 2022 I think everyone conceded he probably would never win one.

When it came to that opportunity against Djokovic, I personally felt that it could be that "Goran" moment although Goran came in ranked 100+ and it wasn't the same but no one really thought Goran would win against Rafter and neither did many with Kyrgios over Djokovic but it could of been crazy enough to happen - But had he gone onto win I felt like it might of been a bit of an anomaly.

It's hardly a comparison due to different times in Tennis but I feel even though John McEnroe lost his head, he still managed 6 Slams and it was arguably one of the golden ages of Tennis if not for Fedalovic - So McEnroe was sort of good at counteracting his anger and aggression and channeling it in his performance.

Nick wasn't as much, Just completely his own worst enemy.

I can't even really remember too many matches where he lost his cool/complete meltdown and then went on to win.

My ending statement to the first and possibly last chapter to Nick's career is he was all flair and very little substance with a mental IQ not even close to ATP level and I think his career hype level is actually pretty over-rated.

He will just always be a guy with a monster serve and on his day can ruffle some feathers, He would at times up his game against the Big 3 but even then he has a winning record over Djokovic only, he is 1-6 against Federer and 3-6 against Nadal.

Those are still respectable H2Hs against the Big 3. Even some of the Ls against Federer were very close (just like the W as well). But I agree on your general hypothesis in that he is overrated in regards to the "based on talent he had a chance to be a GOAT candidate" or "the most talented player of all time" takes. An exceptional serve, nice hands/touch and decent IQ/understanding of patterns. Poor mentality, not the best movement, health/conditioning, nor baseline shots (they're ok, but not elite). Overall I think he underperformed. Could've had a MS1000 in him. Not GS level (as said the path to the Wimbledon F was easened considerably due to numerous things). Career high #13.

 

Can't really say, he had the tools, if he were utmost serious with his fitness and all, probably would've been a fixture in the top 10

 

He wont come back unless he loses all his loot. He couldnt cope, and it would be even harder as he gets older against younger and hungrier players. Its easier to commentate and make money from ‘celebrity’ appearances and dabblings.

 

His ability is very good when it’s good. I never thought I’d see a serve like Roddick’s and then this guy came along. Plus he’s got hands and variety, two things Roddick lacked.

Tennis rewards streaks. So while looking at his career results leaves much to be desired, it doesn’t capture those brief periods of inspired tennis that he put together.

 

it's hilarious to me that he's never even bothered to play clay

 

Phillipoussis overachieved, his career pinnacle was rather the DC win than the 2003 Wimbledon final.
Kyrgios underachieved, with 1 slam and 1 Masters final each (in doubles he won a slam, but we are only dealing here with singles achievements).
Never felt that he could be a multislam winner, his best ability is servebotting on fast surfaces, but even at USO, when he was hyped in 2021 and '22, he was beaten by some players whose ceiling is lower than his.

 

Philippoussis was 100 times the player Kyrgios was OK

 

Kyrgios' return game isn't/wasn't strong enough to be a multi-Grand Slam champion. It's possible in a different era he could have won Wimbledon.

 

He is amazingly talented but was never in great physical shape. He admittedly never put in the work or he could have been a great player. Also he’s pretty much been a part time player for the past many years, which is a shame.

 

He will go down as one of the biggest “what if’s” in tennis 🎾 history.
That’s assuming he is done and doesn’t have a comeback of any note.
Getting the AO doubles total with his good mate the Kokk will always be a highlight, along with the Wimbledon final.
Would have got to the top 10 with Wimbledon points too.
King 👑 Kyrgios may yet return to claim his crowning glory yet, so we can only live in hope.

 

Honestly, Kyrgios's career statistics are pretty much indistinguishable from those of any other 2010s/2020s servebot.

 

I don't think his body would have held up if he put in more hours.

 

1) Tsitsipas wasn't strong either. So far a rather weak grass player with his club level slice (so far his best finish at Wimbledon is 4th round). Mallorca was a small tourney, and Tsitsipas' path wasn't particularly formidable; a Mickey Mouse as the lingo goes. Baghdatis would make the Halle final the following year winning the same number of matches. For their respective seasons (2006 and 2022), their grass W/L % are actually exactly the same (72.7%). For their entire careers, they're also nearly identical (Tsitsipas 57.1%; Baghdatis 57.9%).

Maybe Tsitsipas's Mallorca draw wasn't that difficult but he won the title, which is 1 title more than any of the 5 young opponents Nadal faced did (BTW, none of the opponents Nalbandian faced in 2002 Wimbledon won a grass court title either).
If you mention grass court finals, look at Krajinovic, the player Kyrgios faced in the 2nd round - he reached the Queen's Club final just 2 weeks prior, losing to Berrettini.

2) You have to also look at who the opponents themselves beat. You beat the guy who beat the guy. Baghdatis beat a) Grosjean who had a couple of SF runs in the past three years, and a QF run the previous year, beating a young Djokovic and taking Roddick to 5; b) a young Murray who beat Roddick in the previous round; and c) Hewitt, a former champion, last year's SFist, and this year's Queen's Club champion. That's a display of form. Next year he was close to repeating the SF run. Lost to Djokovic in 5 (which makes me at least question Djokovic's readiness to take him out the year before; in regards to your final assertion). Nadal, the earlier bloomer, was ahead in the development.

Lower-ranked players may upset higher-ranked players who achieved more on the surface, happened a lot during Weaker Era I. But it doesn't make these players tougher to beat than the higher-ranked players. Baghdatis beating Hewitt in 2006 doesn't necessarily make him a tougher opponent for Nadal to beat on grass than Hewitt. And Nadal only faced Baghdatis in the SF stage. 3 of Nadal's other opponents were ranked outside the top 100 (a couple of them below 150) and he had to pull a comeback from 2 sets to 0 down to get past qualifier Kendrick.

I'm not even claiming Kyrgios 2022 Wimbledon route to the final was difficult in case Nadal is excluded - it wasn't. It's just that Nalbandian's 2002, Roddick's 2004 and Nadal's 2006 were at the very least equally easy.

 

The comparison between Kyrgios and Jmac doesn’t work because McEnroe, even when his outbursts hindered him, took his career seriously and prioritised winning.

Kyrgios never gave even basic level of commitment to his training and conditioning, never had a coach, and left plenty of options on the table for how he could maximise his ability. So the ‘best level’ of Kyrgios is not something that ever existed or that we could ever really gauge how good it is. I’m sure his reckless attitude has helped him at times and held him back more, it might also just be integral to him and the only way he could ever function as a professional.