"Media painted me to be this horrific person" - says Nick Kyrgios
ATPFriday, 12 August 2022 at 18:30
Updated at Saturday, 14 December 2024 at 23:34
Nick Kyrgios is glad that some of his true personality is showing now, as he wasn't comfortable with the way he was portrayed earlier in his career.
Branded the bad boy of tennis for the longest time, Kyrgios was uncomfortable with that, and he's glad people are seeing him how he truly is.
He stopped caring about what people think of him a long time ago, but he is hopeful about inspiring others to simply be themselves and be comfortable in their own skin, as he is, which he recently explained.
"Look, I'm playing for a lot more than myself. Hopefully, I'm inspiring millions of people to just go about their life or their sport or their career as they want to and be comfortable in their own skin. That's a strong message."
He also explained that he doesn't care if people don't like him, but he wasn't comfortable with the way he was portrayed earlier in his career either.
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"I don't care if people don't like me and the style of tennis I play. I understand that. It's more like [at] the beginning of my career, [the media] almost painting an image that completely wasn't me based on what I was doing on the court, which was so hard to disconnect from in real life."
"None of you understands what that's like, when people just paint an image of how you are as a general human 95% of the time, but you're only seeing me on the tennis court for 2% of my life."
Kyrgios detailed that he is much more comfortable with the situation now, as having the crowd against him sometimes helps him to win the biggest matches.
"It's been a bit easier for me to navigate through that now. I just stopped really caring, to be honest. I love the fact that I'm playing Roger [Federer] or Rafa [Nadal] and 95% of the fans are going for them. I love that. I actually really love that."
"You guys kind of painted me to be this, like, horrific person for like five years. But now I feel like it just kind of washed away. The true colours came through."
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