The only thing stopping Nick Kyrgios is himself

It’s hard to watch Nick Kyrgios for long without the sense he wants the world to know he considers everything beneath him.

Clearly, journalists are beneath him and he treats them with open contempt at every opportunity, but so too are the officials he abuses, the opponents he mocks and even tennis itself.

'I don’t really like the sport of tennis that much. I don’t love it', he has stated publicly, claiming instead that his real affection is for basketball.

To say Kyrgios has failed to realise his talent for tennis is one of sport’s great understatements, and something he seems to accept. 'I thought my ship had sailed,' he said this week about the prospect of ever winning a Slam.

When he announced himself on the international stage aged 19 in 2014 by defeating then world number one Rafa Nadal in the fourth round at Wimbledon, having qualified by wildcard, he was hailed as the best young player since Roger Federer.

John McEnroe even described him as 'the most talented player of the last ten years' and the widely held view was his prodigious potential would soon see him blossom into a major force within the sport.

But that isn’t what has happened. In the eight years since, he’s won precisely zip when it comes to Grand Slams (an Australian Open doubles title notwithstanding), and only six ATP Tour titles.

As any armchair psychologist will tell you, a well developed superiority complex is almost always a coping mechanism for a deep feeling of inferiority. That’s because it’s easier by far to pretend nothing means anything than to admit you don’t feel worthy, or that you might have squandered your talent.

In 2020, Kyrgios went as far as announcing, ludicrously, that he wasn’t that bothered about winning the big tournaments every other player dreams of winning. 'I don’t have a goal of winning grand slams,' he said. 'I just want to do it my way and have fun with it.' Are we really expected to believe that’s true?

He’s also been fined – Kyrgios is the most fined player in ATP history – for tanking, which is the act of deliberately losing a game by not trying. It’s less humiliating to be beaten if you never set out to win, right?

But so much of what Kyrgios does on court indicates that he does care about winning very much indeed – to the point he is unable to control it. Spitting at umpires, smashing rackets, throwing water bottles and snarling insults at rivals who stand in his way are clearly not the actions of a man who takes part merely for the joy of playing.

'Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend. Sorry to tell you that, mate,' he famously taunted Stan Wawrinka during their 2015 Rogers Cup match. Are these the words of someone at ease with the possibility of loss?

It seems obvious by now the endless bad behaviour is a deliberate ploy by which to divert attention away from a disappointing record as an elite player. It’s easier, perhaps, to live at the centre of a self-generated storm of controversy than to listen to talk of wasted talent and what might have been.

At Wimbledon this year, even by his standards Kyrgios has seemed particularly objectionable. Surly on court and glowering in press conferences, he has appeared hell-bent on intimidating everyone he encounters. After a third round match characterised by trademark unpleasantness, his opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas said he thought Kyrgios was a bully. 'That’s what he does, he bullies opponents… he has a very evil side to him', he said.

The Australian has also been more than usually vile to umpires and lines judges, and he appeared to smirk while refusing to answer questions put to him by journalists about allegations of physical abuse made by ex-girlfriend Chiara Passari.

This sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen at Wimbledon, a tournament that has since 1877 existed as a kind of collective effort at shutting out for a fortnight everything that’s wrong with the world - a pristine paradise in which everyone is beautifully turned out, and where the players are always impossibly charming.

Now, thanks to an abdominal injury that has forced Nadal to withdraw from the semi-final, Kyrgios is into the final and stands on the cusp of claiming tennis’ greatest prize. It’s a match that many will feel they have to hold their nose to watch – a one-man negation of the spirit of SW19 taking on the always humble and gracious Novak Djokovic, one of the sport’s greatest champions (if Djokovic beats Britain's Cameron Norrie today).

Kyrgios has repeatedly made clear in the past he doesn’t play for fans, but only for himself. 'I don’t owe them anything. If you don’t like it, I didn’t ask you to come and watch. Just leave,' he has said. It’s in this context, presumably, that he seeks to escape the twin pressures of expectation and, particularly, disapproval that will now only amplify ahead of Sunday’s showdown.

The irony is that despite all of his appalling behaviour, there is still affection for Kyrgios among tennis fans, most of whom realise his worst opponent has never been the guy on the other side of the net, but rather himself.

The disapproval, then, is not so much for his boorish antics, as grim as they are, but rather for his seeming cowardice in refusing to confront the demons that have so manifestly held him back.

Having apparently left it too late to deliver on his early promise, now comes an improbable last shot at redemption. Will he seize it without behaving like a pillock? Probably not. But perhaps by daring finally to find out how good he could have been - with none of the attendant histrionics and nonsense - he will discover that tennis isn’t beneath him, and emerge the better for it.

He might not owe that to the fans, but surely he does to himself.