“I was the worst physical sort of specimen” – 29-year-old Nick Kyrgios‘ recent revelation in “Good Trouble with Nick Kyrgios” podcast has got quite a lot of traction. Although he has played just one ATP tour since October 2022, he has been pretty active in his off-court activities including his podcast. In a recent episode, featuring Patrick Mouratoglou, Kyrgios seems to open up about the “horrible” experience of the initial days of his career.
During his conversation with Mouratoglou, Kyrgios explained how he never liked a lot of physical training when he was learning the game at the junior level. The former Wimbledon finalist recalled that he would look to get a way out of the training sessions – “I remember, in the academy, I was the worst physical sort of specimen we had, you know, we did all these testing, jump test speed test, change direction, that was horrible. Sometimes I would fake stomach aches to not do tests, and I just didn’t want to do it.”
He further added, “And I remember coaches saying, if you’re not even able to do this, then you shouldn’t even try to become a tennis player. And those are the only things that I remember, I just remember these negative sort of things, and they stick with you forever. But I guess just winning kind of help that, you know, I was just like, oh, you should just tell him like, I’m winning. So it doesn’t really matter what I’m doing here.”
Well, even a few years back in 2017, Kyrgios’ former coach Josh Eagle explained in an interview that Kyrgios could accomplish much more if he adhered to even the most minimal requirements for behaving like a professional athlete. He also claimed that even a daily 15-minute training session can do wonders for him.
To quote Eagle “He does need a bit more stability from a coaching set-up…That can be just as simple as 15 minutes a day. Imagine if Nick Kyrgios worked on his tennis game 15 minutes a day. It sounds crazy, but that’s not actually happening, and he’s still No. 13 in the world.”
In this current podcast, Kyrgios also revealed that because of his attitude in the academy, nobody believed that he could go on and play the sport at the highest level. He added that it’s easy to advise a young player to train in a particular way, but everyone is different and likes to train differently. On that note, earlier, the Aussie also refused to join training sessions offered by Djoker.
Nick Kyrgios prefers “a nice dinner and some drinks” over winning Slams with Novak Djokovic
Back in 2023, after the win at the Srpska Open, world No 1 Novak Djokovic wished to train Kyrgios – “I would love to coach Nick Kyrgios. He would win five Slams with me, but it would not come cheap.” However, Kyrgios was not ready to accept the offer as he funnily replied through his Instagram story – “Haha, instead go let’s have a nice dinner and some drinks.”
Interestingly, Djokovic also featured on Kyrgios’ podcast a couple of weeks back and told him that the offer he made to him was still on the table. “You get on my six-month routine, daily program and you win Wimbledon….easy,” Djokovic said on Kyrgios’ podcast earlier this month.
It will be interesting to see if Kyrgios takes Djokovic’s advice seriously now, as fitness has remained a major concern for him in the last 12 to 18 months. A career that started highly promisingly hasn’t lived up to the expectations yet, but Kyrgios has the opportunity to set it correct as the age is still on his side.