Nick Kyrgios’ defeat on Wednesday evening was such a great calamity that it made Mike Baird’s sudden resignation the following day almost predictable. It was as if the whole country woke up and said ‘I give up too’.
The 21-year-old’s exit from the Australian Open may have only been final as he let Andreas Seppi’s serve drift past his shoulder, but Nick had left much earlier.
Two sets up and with the voice of the stadium behind him, one service game in the third set changed the complexion of the match.
Suddenly, nothing was the same. The lights seemed to have dimmed as the Australian lumbered around the court, weak like a leopard with no prey in sight. For Kyrgios, his prey was before his eyes, and he chose to ignore it.
He became vitriolic at himself, the match, his team and anything he could point his finger at. Shaking his head between points – despite its result – and protesting incomprehensibly to nobody in particular, demonstrated that while Nick was at Melbourne Park, his mind was elsewhere.
But Kyrgios is far more complicated than someone who simply loses control of a match. More than a tennis player, he is an entertainer, a scriptwriter, and he knows how to engage an audience. Kyrgios is a performer first, and an athlete second.
With the knowledge that two years ago he had triumphed Seppi in a five-set thriller, a methodical straight-sets victory was never going to be in Nick’s script. He felt the audience recline in their seats as he needed to secure only one more set to move into the third round, and thus the script was rewritten.
He had the crowd eating out of his hand. He made unforced errors galore, only to recover cathartically with a glorious cross-court forehand winner, then backed that up with a double fault.
The atmosphere turned to the unpredictable drama Nick breathes. It may have appeared that Australia’s rising star was battling his own mental demons, but as he drew the crowd in and out of excitement with the match slipping away, eerily, he had an overwhelming sense of control.
Like John Mcenroe, Shane Warne, Brendan Fevola and – dare I say it – Donald Trump, Kyrgios is in the midst of telling a rollercoaster tale which appears unpredictable, yet remains heavily foreseeable. Similarly to the way Trump has made a series of political gaffes before entering office – only the way the Trump would – Kyrgios has set the bar so low that expectations can now only be exceeded.
His post-match conference reeked of apathy, indifference and nonchalance, just like his tweener at one of the more critical moments in the match, which even left his opponent baffled.
He blamed the loss on his “messed up” body and his poor preparation: two vital ingredients when wanting to invite criticism from the Australian media. Yes, he had complained of a sore knee in the days leading up to the tournament, but we all ‘knew’ that the match was lost between his ears. All us experts ‘know’ that Nick had the talent to be victorious if he so chose. All spectators ‘know’ that Nick understands that he lost mental control of the contest.
But what we all know, really, is that we do not know what Nick knows. Because, after all, he is the one who holds the script, and we just read the lines.
In mid-January, 2018, we will be talking of a great success story. Of an individual who recognised his personality flaws and sought out assistance to improve his game. His talent was never questioned, but his temperament was. He found the maturity to perform at the top level and he found our hearts.
But in mid-January, 2019, we will once again be talking of an individual who has returned to juvenility and lost the trust of his fans as quickly as he gained it, only to find him winning a grand slam 12 months later.
Game, set, match… Nick Kyrgios had control all along.
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