Kyrgios Opens Up About Difficulties With Getting Endorsements Due To Being Painted As 'Villain'

Friday, 13 October 2023 at 11:00

Updated at Friday, 13 October 2023 at 11:04

byEvita Mueller

Nick Kyrgios was deeply uncomfortable by being painted the villain of tennis, but he also didn't really help himself get rid of it.

The career of Nick Kyrgios is a truly fascinating one because here we have a player with tremendous talent who kind of never lived up to it. He's had an amazing 2022 season which might be the first one he truly played seriously and we immediately saw how truly great he can be.

Winning trophies and making the Wimbledon final cannot happen by chance, and Kyrgios proved himself as a player. Yet, if we look at it overall, he did kind of waste all of that potential, and much of the blame falls on him.

He didn't really help himself with some of what he did, but he's far from the worst possible person ever. That's how you'd think of him if you only went by headlines, and it made him really uncomfortable for much of his career. He never truly understood, and he's still paying the price for it.

I’ve got a lot of endorsements & stuff. With tennis, that hasn’t always been easy to be honest. They’ve painted me as a villain for a long time in my career. When really, I was like smashing a racquet.. I could play a 4 hour match & the match would be so high quality. For 5 seconds I broke a racquet. That’s all they would focus on.

— Kyrgios laments media treatment

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Kyrgios is not wrong, as we live in sensationalist times where everything gets blown out of proportion for gain. Social media allows things to go viral quickly, but you need a 'bang' to make it go viral, and sensationalist headlines do the trick well, especially as most people don't bother with the actual content but rather the headline.

It was super hard for a long part of my career to try & get deals. People were like ‘This guy’s too volatile.’ I’m like ‘I’m swearing.’ That’s all I’m doing. Stuff like that. I feel like now I’m definitely more embraced. I feel like they’re actually rooting for me to do well.