Nick Kyrgios has had his return to the ATP Tour deferred after an unexpected foot injury amidst a terrifying armed robbery at his home.
The tranquillity of the morning at his Canberra residence was shattered when an armed assailant threatened his mother, leading to the theft of Kyrgios' Tesla a few weeks ago. A hectic sequence ensued, culminating in Kyrgios cutting his foot in his efforts to protect his family and track down the robber.
His manager, Daniel Horsfall, revealed that Kyrgios had been looking forward to increasing his on-court training load. However, the wound's delayed healing has led to unforeseen adjustments in his comeback timeline, forcing him to withdraw from an exhibition match against Holger Rune in Denmark.
Speaking to the Canberra Times, Horsfall provided an update on what are their plans with the grass-court season right around the corner. Currently, Kyrgios appears on the entry list for the 2023 Stuttgart Open and that will be their goal for the comeback.
"We see no reason why we can't make it to Stuttgart, that's the goal. The knee surgery went as well as it possibly could and his rehabilitation was fantastic and we were at the point where we were doing on-court loading and management."
After a successful knee surgery, Kyrgios was already getting back to top form, making sure that he'll be able to compete in five-set matches at the Grand Slam tournament in Paris and London. But the new injury has halted his progress.
"We needed to be at a point that he could comfortably play five sets. Right when we were getting stuck into the loading period, the armed robbery happened at his house. During the ordeal he cut his foot quite badly."
The incident left the family in shock, their focus initially more on their emotional well-being than the severity of Kyrgios' injury. This unfortunate injury has stymied Kyrgios' plans to rejoin the action as he was forced to withdraw from the upcoming Roland Garros.
"We don't know when it happened, but it's quite a large laceration. The location of the wound, it's been open for almost a week and a half now. It's not healing correctly and he can't put in the work on court, so he's been off court for almost two weeks now."
Horsfall also confirmed that the knee, which was the main worry during the recovery, is fine, and they now focus their efforts to the wounded part that he injured during the robbery.
"His knee is fine, it's just that he can't get his loading up so we can manage the rest of his body correctly and he doesn't injure something else when he gets out there. We'll start the process once the wound starts to heal and scab. We're definitely still trying to make the first tournament of the grass season."
Once again, Horsfall confirmed that the knee surgery was a great success and that Kyrgios was on track to join the competition maybe even sooner than expected. However, he wasn't able to practice more due to the most recent setback.
"In terms of his knee, it couldn't have gone any better. There were no hiccups and he was probably in better shape than he was this time last year, but we haven't been able to get his court hours up."
One thing that may bring smiles to Kyrgios' fans is the fact that he may play more tournaments in the second part of the season, to balance out the events that he missed during the first part of the year.
"It would have been doing a disservice to everyone to send him out there unprepared. He just misses the competition ... this is the longest he's been out of tennis because of injury. We would've been ready to go, but we had to readjust the schedule. We'll probably play a few more tournaments in the second half of the year to balance it out."
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