Despite playing one match all season, Nick Kyrgios believes his massive social media presence is justification for his star power.
Kyrgios reacted with laughter and some banter to a tweet that showed the overall social media followers of the current ATP Top 10 across three platforms. Novak Djokovic leads the list with 32.6 million followers, ahead of ATP world number one Carlos Alcaraz who is on 4.87 million.
The discrepancy only grows bigger from there until the last member in the list, Taylor Fritz, is slightly short of 600K followers. Although Kyrgios is not ranked in the Top 10 (and has not achieved that feat at any point in his career), Kyrgios is clear of the nine players on the list in terms of social media followers.
The Aussie boasts slightly over 4 million followers on Instagram, and over a million in total across Facebook and Twitter, which would put him second in the list behind only Novak Djokovic. And Kyrgios responded to a fan who tried to remind him that he's never reached the world's Top 10 playing tennis.
"No I think it’s funny that I’ve brought more to the sport than most, don’t be upset."
Kyrgios remains sidelined due to injury. He has played one match all season and is unsure of where his next tournament will be at. Kyrgios was forced to pull out from Wimbledon at the last minute due to a wrist injury. And he admitted that his knee is still not in perfect working order.
Kyrgios missed his title defense at this week's Citi Open in Washington, where he will drop 500 ranking points and could see his ranking take a significant hit, cascading to 90th at the very least. He's also joined the growing list of absentees in Toronto, which will see him exit the world's top 100 for the first time since 2022.