In 2022, Nick Kyrgios had his greatest ever run at a Grand Slam, making the final of Wimbledon, where he met Novak Djokovic.
Kyrgios had enjoyed a career-best campaign at the championships, earning wins over Stefanos Tsitsipas, Brandon Nakashima and Cristian Garin to advance to the semi-finals of the tournament.
Scheduled to play Rafael Nadal in the final four, the Australian automatically advanced to the final after the Spaniard withdrew from the event prior to the match due to injury.
Having only reached the quarter-finals at majors previously, which he achieved in Melbourne and London earlier in his career, the match was the first Grand Slam final Kyrgios had made.
It was also the first time an Australian man had made the final of Wimbledon since 2003, a feat that Kyrgios said, prior to the clash with Djokovic, wasn’t celebrated by tennis greats from his home nation.
Who Nick Kyrgios said was the only Australian legend that supported him in 2022
In his pre-final press conference, when asked about potentially joining the list of his compatriots to become champion at Wimbledon, Kyrgios said: “As for the greats of Australian tennis, they haven’t always been the nicest to me personally.
“They haven’t always been supportive, and they havent been supportive these two weeks.
“So it’s hard for me to read things that they say about me, when, for instance, when I saw Ashleigh Barty in the final of the Australian I was nothing but happy, and I would never say a bad word about an Australian making a final, like that’s just mean.
“The only great that’s been supportive of me the whole time has been Lleyton Hewitt. He’s our Davis Cup captain, and he kind of knows that I do my own thing; he knows to keep his distance and let me do me.
“He sends me a message here and there [saying] ‘keep going’, but it’s pretty sad because I don’t get any support from any of the other Australian tennis players; not the players, I mean, the past greats.
“It’s weird, they just have a sick obsession with just tearing me down for some reason. Whether they don’t like me, or whether they’re afraid, like, I don’t know.
“It sucks because if it was roles reversed, and I saw de Minaur in the final or Jordan Thompson, I’d be pumped, I’d be stoked, I’d be having a pint watching and going nuts.
“So shoutout to Lleyton I guess.”
Nick Kyrgios’ record at Grand Slams since the 2022 Wimbledon final
Since his campaign at the All England Club in 2022, Kyrgios has only played in two Grand Slam events due to injuries he has sustained in recent years.
After ultimately losing to Djokovic in the Wimbledon final, he entered the US Open later that season, where he made the quarter-finals.
He lost to Karen Khachanov over five sets in the last eight at Flushing Meadows, which would be the last match at a major he would play for over two years.
Kyrgios’ next, and most recent, appearance at a Grand Slam was at the Australian Open this year, where he crashed out in the first round to Britain’s Jacob Fearnley.
Despite announcing earlier in the season that he would play at Wimbledon, the former world number 13 has since withdrawn from the championships after another injury setback.
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