Nick Kyrgios says Andy Murray deserves to retire from tennis ‘more gracefully’ amid injury problems | Tennis News
Nick Kyrgios believes Andy Murray deserves to retire from tennis “a little more gracefully” than he did when he retired earlier this year.
Murray retired in August after playing his final match at the Paris Olympics, more than eight years after winning the last of his three Grand Slam titles.
Australia’s Kyrgios, who has not played a competitive match since June 2023 due to his own injury problems, said he has no current plans to quit the sport but hopes he can do so when he puts an end to the effects of injuries to Murray and Rafael Nadal, who will retire in November.
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Two-time Olympic champion Andy Murray gives his first interview since officially retiring from tennis and talks about his next plans and how he plans to spend time at the Paris Games with his daughter.
“I look at how Andy Murray is doing now and how Rafael is doing. I don’t want to be like that either, I don’t want to crawl to the finish line in a way,” said Kyrgios An The Louis Theroux Podcast.
“What Andy Murray has achieved in this sport is basically beyond anyone’s…unless you’re Novak (Djokovic), (Roger) Federer or Nadal, the next person is Andy Murray.”
“It’s like you’ve achieved everything. I think you deserve to go out with a little more grace than he did. I think the surgeries, the pain is just not worth it in my opinion.”
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A look at 10 of Andy Murray’s biggest points of all time on the ATP Tour.
Kyrgios, meanwhile, said he was drinking “20 or 30 drinks” every night as he struggled with his mental health and was “out of control” during a particularly dark period in his life.
Speaking about the events of 2019, Kyrgios said: “It was a bad time, yes.”
“I just struggled to be who I was. It was hard back then and I didn’t feel like I could step away from the sport and kind of work on myself and get myself in the right headspace.”
“I just played and played and played and kind of dealt with everything. And it was a dark time. Like I drank and lost control and I kept playing and traveling.”
“Twenty or 30 drinks (in one night). Simply. I would drink like a fish. Anything, vodka, anything.”
Andy Murray hugs Nick Kyrgios after their 2018 match at Queen’s
“Yeah, but then just wake up and play Nadal the next day. Give him a good bang for his buck.”
“It was terrible. I mean, I almost enjoyed feeling like that and that’s when I knew I had to get out of there.”
Asked if he was okay now, Kyrgios added: “I fight it most days. I don’t wake up feeling great.”
“I feel like I now know how to get out of my bad thinking. I used to have no resistance. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
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