While 2016 will go down as a breakthrough season for Nick Kyrgios, after the Aussie won his first three ATP World Tour titles and cracking the world’s top fifteen, unfortunately, it will also go down as a very controversial one.

On Monday night, the 21-year-old copped an eight-week suspension from the Tour following his second round loss to Mischa Zverev at the Shanghai Masters, in which he was alleged to have ‘tanked.’

This ‘effort’ by Kyrgios in his match against Zverev, among other incidents in a contest that lasted under one hour, prompted ATP officials to finally act by suspending him until the eve of the 2017 Australian Open.

This suspension is effective immediately.

However, it has since been reduced to three weeks after he agreed to seek help from a sports psychologist, meaning he could return in the week starting November 7, in which the Paris Masters takes place.

Rankings-wise, the suspension is not expected to harm his chances of a top-16 seeding at next year’s Australian Open, which would see him avoid the big guns until at least the fourth round of the tournament.

Anyway, let’s now take the time to look back at what has been, without a doubt, a breakthrough but controversial season for the 21-year-old Canberran.

His season started at the 2016 Hopman Cup where he partnered Daria Gavrilova, representing Australia Green. The team went through their round-robin stage undefeated, during which Kyrgios scored a straight-sets win over Andy Murray.

They ultimately went on to win the title, defeating Ukraine 2-0 in the final, with Kyrgios scoring the winning point when he defeated Alexandr Dolgopolov in straight sets.

He then bypassed the Sydney International, instead flying straight to Melbourne to prepare for the Australian Open, where expectations were high following his run to the quarter-finals the previous year.

Seeded 29th, the 21-year-old won his first two matches in straight sets before running into the Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych in the third round.

Just as the Australian was about to go two-sets-to-love down, and potentially starring down the barrel of an embarrassing defeat, Kyrgios let loose at the umpire over an issue about music being played in the crowd during points.

Kyrgios regained his cool to take the third set for the loss of just one game, but Berdych would finally prevail in four sets, and, having failed to defend his quarter-final points from 2015, the Australian would drop out of the top 40 following the conclusion of the tournament.

A fortnight later, he would return to action at the Open 13 in Marseille and would extract some revenge on Berdych in the semi-finals before defeating former US Open champion Marin Cilic in the final to win his first ATP World Tour title.

It was done in impressive fashion – the Canberran did not drop a set through the whole week and was invincible on serve, not being broken in 47 service games.

It also marked the end of a six-month probation period which was set about after he made crude comments about Stan Wawrinka’s girlfriend, Donna Vekic, during a match at the Montreal Masters last year.

A week later in Dubai, Kyrgios would defeat Berdych again, this time in the quarter-finals, before retiring hurt to Wawrinka in the semi-finals due to a back injury. It was their first meeting anywhere since that aforementioned match last August.

The back injury he suffered would ultimately rule him out of Australia’s Davis Cup tie against the United States, which was to be the first for the country under the captaincy of the newly-retired Lleyton Hewitt.

Without him in the side, Australia would go down to the Jim Courier-captained side 4-1, leaving them on the brink of relegation to the Zonal Group.

He then jetted to California to contest the first Masters tournament of the year at Indian Wells, but his presence there would be a brief one as he lost in straight sets to Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas.

However, he would fare better in Miami, becoming the first Australian since Hewitt in 2002 to reach the semi-finals of a Masters tournament, eventually going down to Japan’s Kei Nishikori, also in straight sets.

After a three-week break, Kyrgios would return to Estoril, where he had reached his first career final the previous year. He would reach the semi-finals before going down to Spaniard Nicolas Almagro in straight sets.

Next was Madrid, where he again met Stan Wawrinka, who was the reigning French Open champion. Twelve months after upsetting Roger Federer at this tournament in three sets, Kyrgios would pull off an impressive victory over the 31-year-old, saving all four break points he faced throughout the match.

Such was the interest in this match generated by the previous August’s sledging controversy, which landed the Australian a suspended 28-day ban if he offended again, it was played in front of a full house.

He eventually reached the quarter-finals, going one better than 2015, losing to Kei Nishikori for the second time in the year.

The following week in Rome, Kyrgios would face off against Rafael Nadal for the first time since the Australian, then aged 19 and ranked 144th in the world, sensationally upset the 14-times Major champion at Wimbledon in 2014.

Kyrgios looked set to repeat the dose, this time on the clay courts which the Spaniard has dominated for so long, when he took the opening set in a tiebreak. However, Nadal would rebound to take the match in three sets.

It was during this time that Kyrgios engaged in a slanging match with Australia’s Olympic Chef de Mission, Kitty Chiller, after she put him and Bernard Tomic on notice for their conduct two-and-a-half months out from the Games.

The Canberran, who had then reached a career-high ranking of 19, responded by withdrawing from the Rio Olympics citing unfair treatment by the Australian Olympic Committee.

Meanwhile, at the French Open, Kyrgios again reached the third round, as he did the previous year, and after winning his first two matches in straight sets he would fall foul of local favourite Richard Gasquet in the third round.

Then, at Wimbledon, Kyrgios copped two fines from as many rounds, firstly for bad behaviour in his match against Radek Stepanek and then for losing his cool in the next round against Dustin Brown.

As he did last year, he again reached the fourth round, only to find himself on the wrong end of a straight-sets thrashing by local hero and eventual champion, Andy Murray.

Three weeks after his exit from Wimbledon, Kyrgios boasted on Twitter how good Pokemon Go was, admitting that he had been playing more of that rather than practising on the tennis court.

Just quietly, how good is Pokemon Go. Honestly been playing that more than tennis ???

— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) July 24, 2016

He then proceeded to suffer a humiliating three-set defeat at the hands of junior Wimbledon champion Denis Shapalov in the first round of the Canadian Masters.

While the majority of the world’s top tennis players were going for gold in Rio, Kyrgios decided to play a smaller event in Atlanta, and his decision to bypass the Olympics was somewhat justified when he beat John Isner to claim his second title of the season.

He then came crashing back down to earth in his next event at Cincinnati; after defeating recent Wimbledon quarter-finalist Lucas Pouille in the first round, he would go down to Croatia’s Borna Coric in three sets after destroying three racquets in the first set alone.

At the final Major of the year, the US Open, Kyrgios would reach the third round for the second time (after doing so in 2014) but would retire midway through his match against Iliya Marchenko due to a hip injury.

American great John McEnroe then took a shot at Kyrgios in the wake of his withdrawal, challenging him to “quit professional tennis” if his heart wasn’t in it.

The defeat for Kyrgios was his first at a Major against any opponent ranked lower than him. Prior to that, he had beaten the likes of Radek Stepanek, Richard Gasquet, Milos Raonic, and most notably, Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2014.

He would recover in time for Australia’s Davis Cup World Group play-off against Slovakia, a tie which the Aussies were heavily favoured to win given the Slovaks had no top-100 players at their disposal.

Kyrgios played just the one match, defeating Andrej Martin in straight sets as his country won their first tie under captain Lleyton Hewitt, retaining their place in the World Group in the process.

He would then contest a minor tournament in Chengdu as the second seed, but he would crash out in the first round by way of a three-set loss to South African Kevin Anderson.

A week later in Tokyo, Kyrgios would reach his third final for the year, and after getting a walkover from Radek Stepanek in the second round and defeating Gael Monfils in the semis, would win his third title for the year by defeating Belgium’s David Goffin in the final, coming from a set down to do so.

Then came the Shanghai Masters, the penultimate Masters event for the year.

The 21-year-old started off impressively by defeating Sam Querrey, Novak Djokovic’s conqueror at Wimbledon, in his first match in straight sets, not facing a break point for the entire match.

Then, all hell broke loose in his second round match against Mischa Zverev.

He served a ball kiddishly in just the fifth game of the opening set, dropping serve in the process, and proceeded to lose the match in just under one hour, winning just four games in a bizarre display.

He also engaged in an argument with the umpire and also got into a slanging match with spectators during the 48-minute horror show.

Initially, he appeared to escape suspension for his on-court antics, but he did cop some heavy fines for his misconduct arising from the match. He then took to Twitter to apologise for his actions.

Not good enough today on many levels, I'm better than that. I can go on about excuses but there are none. Sorry #StillAWorkInProgress ????

— Nicholas Kyrgios (@NickKyrgios) October 12, 2016

However, on Monday night, the ATP World Tour announced that it had fined Kyrgios further, and handed him a season-ending eight-week suspension from all competition, which would have expired on the eve of the 2017 Australian Open.

That has since been reduced to three weeks after he opted to “enter a plan of care under the direction of a sports psychologist, or an equivalent plan approved by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP)”.

This means he could be back playing again in the week starting November 7, which is the week the final major event of the regular season, the Paris Masters, takes place (the World Tour Finals takes place in London the following week).

Tennis Australia has supported the ban in a statement released on Tuesday morning:

“Nick’s health and wellbeing is a priority and the ATP has offered a reduced penalty on the provision that he seeks appropriate professional advice, which he has agreed to do,” the statement read.

“Nick understands the gravity of his actions, has shown remorse and expressed a willingness to improve. We have always offered assistance and advice to Nick and his team and will continue to do so.”

The man himself has stated that he does look forward to returning in 2017, and released a statement in response to the ATP suspension.

“The season has been a long one as I battled several injuries and other challenges towards the end of the summer,” he said.

“The Asian circuit was particularly tough after the long week and win in Tokyo and with the travel throughout the continent, my body finally just gave out in Shanghai both physically and mentally.

“This is no excuse, and I know very well that I need to apologise to the fans – in Shanghai and in other parts of the world – as well as the tournament organisers in Shanghai who do an amazing job.”

It remains to be seen whether Kyrgios will learn from the controversies that have plagued the early part of his fledgeling career. He is the first male player in nearly 30 years to be suspended for bad behaviour since John McEnroe copped a two-month ban following an outburst at an umpire at the 1987 US Open.

Let’s hope that he makes more headlines for all the right reasons in 2017.