Nick Kyrgios ‘plays the victim very well’ – former Wimbledon champion

Tennis News

Shahida Jacobs
May 17, 2023

Pat Cash believes Nick Kyrgios oversteps the mark a little too often when it comes to his outbursts on-court antics, adding that the Australian has the victim complex as he believes “everybody is after me”.

Kyrgios is not everyone’s cup of tea on the court as he often involved in spats with his opponents, officials, spectators and even members of his own players box.

However, he does have a fair few supporters off the court and does a lot of good through his charity.

Last year he was involved in an unsavoury clash with Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third round at Wimbledon and the Greek described him as “evil and a bully” during his post-match press conference, but the Australian described his rival as “soft”.

Cash was one of those who were quite outspoken about Kyrgios’ antics at the grass-court Grand Slam as felt his compatriot “brought tennis to the lowest level with his cheating, manipulation, abuse”.

Ten months later and Cash’s stance has softened a bit, but he still feels the 27-year-old takes things too far.

“I’ve said this quite a number of years ago, I said if Nick can just improve his mental capacity to be able to focus in matches just five per cent every year or three per cent every year then he’ll be a contender for Grand Slams. And that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s done really well in that respect,” the former world No 4 and 1987 Wimbledon winner said on the Control the Controllables.

“He realises that he’s never going to be perfect and he’s going to explode and lose his temper. I’m certainly someone who did that but not to the disrespect. Of course I yelled at my coach in frustration at some stage but if you ask Marcus how many times I did that, he’d be able to count on the same hand. But there wouldn’t be a set without him [Kyrgios] doing it a handful of times. I did it a handful of times in my whole career.

“I think John [McEnroe] certainly pushed the envelope more than probably he should have, more than should have been allowed. I have no doubt about it. He got away with a lot. And Nick as well, he plays the victim very well like ‘everybody is after me and nobody likes me.’ It’s not true at all. It’s just all in his head.”

Nick Kyrgios Pat Cash