Nick Kyrgios will make his long-awaited return to professional tennis in 2025, and he revealed that Novak Djokovic helped him decide to play on the ATP Tour again.
Some understandably wondered whether Kyrgios would ever compete professionally again after only playing one tournament during the last two years. That was a failed comeback attempt at the Stuttgart Open in June 2023.
Kyrgios continued to struggle with severe wrist and knee injuries afterward. The wrist issue was particularly troublesome, and although the 29-year-old repeatedly said he hoped to return, doubts continued to increase the longer he was on the sidelines.
However, the two-time Citi Open champion confirmed last month that he would play at the 2025 Australian Open. It will be his first appearance at a Grand Slam since losing a thrilling five-set battle against Karen Khachanov in the 2022 US Open quarterfinals.
Kyrgios had a wrist reconstruction that proved crucial to his recovery. The Australian stated the surgeon gave him a 15% chance of playing professional tennis again, but he will return in 2025 having overcome those odds.
Fans at the Brisbane International will get to watch Kyrgios in the opening week of the new season. He plans to use that tournament as preparation for the Australian Open.
Kyrgios recently opened up about how Djokovic convinced him to make a comeback after practicing with the Serbian when he still had doubts, as per the Courier Mail.
"I was hitting with Novak and when he said to me, It doesn’t look like you’ve had surgery, and that was a big motivation to say like maybe I’m actually making some inroads and some progress into getting back because I didn’t really know."
"That was a big drive for me ... so, if he didn’t say that, I don’t know if I would have been motivated and if I would have kept pushing on the thought, but that was definitely a big part of the journey when he said that to me."
The 2022 Wimbledon runner-up described how serious the wrist reconstruction was. He had to completely relearn how to use his right wrist because of the pain he was in after having the surgery done.
"It was a wrist reconstruction, so there was four holes drilled in my hand, and there’s a piece of string kind of holding my wrist together and my fingers looked like sausages when I got out of the surgery."
"I was in a cast for about 12 weeks, no movement, and I basically just had to relearn how to use my right wrist again, even just carrying grocery bags, anything was super painful."
Kyrgios also discussed needing to find the right balance between not being too hard on himself after a lengthy time on the sidelines and naturally being his own harshest critic during matches.
"I’ll have to be reasonable with myself as there was a fair chance of me not even returning to this level and playing confidently so I think I’ve already exceeded a lot of expectations. But I’m my hardest critic and I want to win matches, I don’t want to make up the numbers."
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