Nick Kyrgios is one of the best tennis players in the world and a well-known person, and he's been raising awareness about mental issues recently.
Kyrgios recently withdrew from the 2024 Australian Open, but he's been spending a lot of time in media recently, talking on multiple podcasts or shows, even creating an OnlyFans account.
One of those shows was Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast, where Kyrgios talked about his mental issues in the past, at times when he was referred to as the "bad boy of tennis," but no one realized the implications of that.
"I was drinking every night. You know, just at the time I thought it was just fun, but it wasn't fun. It was just self-inflicted pain. And I had friends around me telling me it wasn't healthy, and I ignored them."
The 28-year-old admitted that before taking on Rafael Nadal at the Wimbledon Championships in 2019, he faced mental issues that resulted in self-harm. He went on to lose the Round-of-64 match 3-6, 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-7(3), but that wasn't what bothered him at that moment.
"And I was playing [Rafael] Nadal the next day. It's like, I looked at myself. I was like, I can't do this. I have to somehow change these habits. So I had self-harm everywhere."
As a result of his self-harm, the Australian had to wear a sleeve while competing on the Centre Court at Wimbledon so that fans in the stands and millions in front of TV screens wouldn't be able to see marks of his self-harm.
"I had to wear an arm sleeve on the center court of Wimbledon and no one knew any of these problems. And it was, it was hard. And I look back and I just don't know how I got out of it to be honest, I was such a mess."
According to his own words, Kyrgios is now in a different period of his life, and such things are not occurring in his life anymore. Yet, the fact that he talks about it is very important to raise awareness about the fact that everyone deals with some mental challenge, even the best athletes in the world.