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Nick Kyrgios recently held a conversation with Naomi Osaka and opened up about his emotional journey as a tennis player.
Kyrgios began playing professionally in the year 2013. Since then, he has won seven singles titles on tour and four in doubles, including the 2022 Australian Open with Thanasi Kokkinakis. He has reached as high as 13th and 11th in the singles and doubles rankings, respectively.
Notably, the Aussie has been inactive on the tour as he hasn't played a competitive match since the Stuttgart Open held in June 2023. He has taken on the roles of an announcer and a podcaster in the past few months. He hosts varied guests on his podcast called Good Trouble With Nick Kyrgios.
The soon-to-be 29-year-old tennis star recently sat down with Naomi Osaka in a recent episode of his podcast and admitted to feeling fulfilled outside of the tennis courts.
"It's almost like when I’m not playing tennis, I’m probably the happiest. I obviously miss… I’m a competitor no matter if I’m playing video games, basketball or tennis. I hate to lose. I’m a really bad loser," Kyrgios said five minutes 20 seconds into his conversation with Osaka.
The Aussie claimed to have never been passionate about his professional duty. He said:
"When I play tennis, it's a very stressful time. For most tennis players, it’s their absolute passion and for me, when I was young, it was never something I fell in love with. My relationship with tennis is not like a love relationship. I don’t wake and be like, ‘What can I get better at today?’"
Nick Kyrgios - "The amount of negative energy I've received throughout my career... when I'm on court, I carry all that stuff with me"
Nick Kyrgios has been under media scrutiny for his on and off-court antics ever since he started playing tennis.
In the aforementioned episode of the Good Trouble With Nick Kyrgios podcast, he suggested that he always bore criticism as baggage while competing against his opponents.
"The amount of media and negative energy I've received throughout my career towards my family, friends, partner, it’s almost like when I'm on court, I carry all that stuff with me. So it is a bit of dark time when I'm on court because I don't forget anything," Kyrgios told Naomi Osaka.
Notably, Kyrgios has dropped out of the ATP's weekly ranking cycle due to inactivity. He last featured on the men's singles tally as World No. 470 on October 2, 2023.
