- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
With Wimbledon finally upon us, the tennis world has once more started buzzing with possible narratives for the men’s game.
Will Novak Djokovic continue his extraordinary run of consecutive grand slam titles, and come one step closer to the cosseted career slam?
Will Roger Federer take out SW19 for a record eighth time, as one last hurrah in the twilight of a glittering career?
Or will home hope and Great Scot Andy Murray break through the ranks of the proverbial Big Four (minus Rafael Nadal) once again to clinch a third grand slam?
Whatever the case, this year’s Wimbledon is sure to be loaded with drama. Excitement is already brewing in the early rounds, with a few potential blockbuster matches lined up.
Japanese sensation Kei Nishikori versus Aussie Sam Groth will provide an intriguing first round battle of big-server against baseliner. Austria’s brightest star Domninic Thiem is pitted against the man who thwarted his quest for consecutive grass court titles at Halle, German Florian Mayer.
And a firecracker of a fight is sure to ensue with grass court specialist Bernard Tomic taking on Spain’s supremely talented yet highly erratic Fernando Verdasco.
But there are two players on tour, who because of their differing ages, styles, and strategies, would provide a clash of cataclysmic proportions if they met.
One is clinical, quick, and cunning, the other is powerful, unpredictable, and possesses a freaky kind of genius nobody else in the field can replicate. However, both have the same turbulent temperament and blinkered drive to win. I’m talking, of course, about Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios.
Since Kyrgios’s breakout onto the scene in 2014, he and Djokovic have somehow, by some strange twist of the tennis gods, managed to evade each other. Kyrgios has played, and beaten, Djokovic’s fellow members of the Big Four – Nadal, Federer, and Murray – more than once.
Djokovic has taken on many of the up-and-coming young guns, including Thanasi Kokkinakis, Borna Coric, and Dominic Thiem, and emerged victorious.
The exception is 22 year-old Jiri Veseley, who conquered Djokovic in the second round of this year’s Monte Carlo Masters. If you really want to split hairs, German teenager Alexander Zverev, and 25 year-old Belgian David Goffin, both beat the Serb at The Boodles. While this is an exhibition tournament, Djokovic, to his very great credit, always plays to win.
Yet despite the odds, for the past two years Djokovic and Kyrgios have either been on different sides of the draw, or in different quarters, at every tournament. Even when both have had a deep run, Kyrgios has been knocked out just one or two rounds before a possible meeting.
This year at Wimbledon, they are on opposite sides again. And to the average tennis aficionado, potentially missing out on a battle of the current generation against the next, finesse against power, strategy against spontaneity, is very, very frustrating.
The only thing these two have in common is their propensity for somewhat vitriolic outbursts.
Kyrgios is known far and wide for his strings of expletives and sparring with the crowd, the umpire, the line judges, and anyone else who will listen.
Djokovic unashamedly yells at ball kids and abuses his racquets; this year nearly taking out an audience member at the Rome Masters by bouncing a racquet off the ground and into the stands.
He also nearly hit a line judge at Roland Garros with a similar outburst. Put them together, and it would be like an episode of Game of Thrones mixed with a daytime soap opera.
As it is, the only chance of their meeting this year at Wimbledon would be in the final. Improbable, but not impossible. What would happen if you pitted these two ferocious competitors against each other, in a best of five setting, to play for the most coveted prize in tennis?
Djokovic, with his stringently refined skills and wealth of experience, could absolutely vivisect Kyrgios in straight sets. Or, if Kyrgios decides to flick on that genius-switch we’ve all seen him activate at random moments, it would be a five-set saga of epic proportions – the likes of which the tennis world has never seen before.
It could eclipse every other great battle of the era as the match of the decade. And Nick Kyrgios, for all his kinks and quirks, could very well come out triumphant. In short, we would witness history.
What happens over the next two weeks remains to be seen. Both players have a mountain to climb before they can even think about facing off. But maybe, just maybe, the reason they have avoided each other thus far is because the mighty tennis gods have been saving their eventual clash for the biggest of stages, with the highest of stakes.
All we can do in the meantime is keep our fingers crossed.
Whether it’s aces or races, try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp for great odds and a great punting experience. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.