Nick Kyrgios news: Aussie feels decision to only focus on Big Three has ‘caught up’ with the sport

Tennis News
Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios on court

Tennis needs to embrace more different personalities if it is to survive with Nick Kyrgios lamenting the fact that the sport has only really focused on Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer the past decade.

The Big Three of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer have dominated the sport since 2003 as they have won 60 Grand Slams between them and pretty much ruled the roost on and off the court.

And the tennis powers that be have piggybacked off their success, leaving the rest of the pack fighting over scraps in terms of exposure.

Kyrgios, who has been a big drawcard on the ATP Tour the past few years despite only playing a handful of tournaments, believes the lack of focus on other personalities is now catching up with the sport.

“I just think that tennis has done a really poor job with accepting personalities in the past,” the Australian said after his third-round doubles win with compatriot Thanasi Kokkinakis.

“I think they have kind of really only marketed three players for the last decade and now it’s kind of caught up with them, so hence they have tried to push some of the Next Gen guys, which I think some of them are really exciting I really like the two young Canadians, I think can really do some special things in the sport.

“But tennis has really struggled to embrace different personalities, like when people go about it differently. Like something about Thanasi when I watch him play singles it glues me to the TV, whether he’s losing or whether he’s winning, it’s just the way he goes about it.

“I think tennis needs to embrace that more.”

Kyrgios was at his entertaining best during the singles against Liam Broady and Daniil Medvedev and he feels the match against the latter had the best of both worlds.

He added: “You look at the match against me and Medvedev, you couldn’t have two polar opposite kind of personalities going up against it.

“But the actual quality of tennis was still to a pretty good level and it was fun to watch. I think tennis just needs to push that I think, a lot. Otherwise…”

Nick Kyrgios

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