Nick Kyrgios spoke with Naomi Osaka about tennis and once again admitted that he's not really that passionate about it.
Growing up, Kyrgios wanted to become a basketball player but eventually ended up playing tennis. It wasn't a sport that he necessarily liked very much, but he quickly demonstrated a talent for it.
Eventually, he'd become a pro and carve out a solid career, albeit short of what it could have been. The culprit is Kyrgios himself. He never took the sport seriously enough and never really put himself through the suffering of what it takes to become one of the best in the world - and yet he played in a Wimbledon final.
Can you imagine what he could have done if he sacrificed as much as Rafael Nadal did, for example? Still, he chose his own career path and recently shared his thoughts on tennis during a conversation with Naomi Osaka for his podcast, which is produced by her company.
"It's almost like when I’m not playing tennis, I’m probably the happiest. I obviously miss… I’m a competitor no matter if I’m playing video games, basketball or tennis. I hate to lose. I’m a really bad loser."
"When I play tennis, it's a very stressful time. For most tennis players, it’s their absolute passion and for me, when I was young, it was never something I fell in love with. My relationship with tennis is not like a love relationship. I don’t wake and be like, ‘What can I get better at today?’"
Playing professional sports is stressful, and the Australian experienced it throughout his career. Despite being very competitive even outside of the tennis court, he still had to deal with a lot of things that a regular person doesn't.
"The amount of media and negative energy I've received throughout my career towards my family, friends, partner, it’s almost like when I'm on court, I carry all that stuff with me. So it is a bit of dark time when I'm on court because I don't forget anything."