Nick Kyrgios recently talked about some of the darkest moments of his life, which happened when he was winning titles on the ATP Tour.
Kyrgios has been quite open about his struggles with mental health and how he’s had some dark moments in the past. He seems to be in a better place at the moment, thankfully crediting his family and people close to him for helping him.
He never quite went into too much detail about what had happened, but he was quite open about his battle with depression, suicidal ideation, and self-harm.
Those were some of the things he touched upon also during a recent episode of the Tennis Insiders podcast hosted by WTA player Caroline Garcia. He spoke about what he calls the darkest week of his life.
The whole experience was a very sobering one, but Kyrgios learned a lot from it, especially now that he’s able to look back at it with a clear mind. It showed that winning in tennis, for example, couldn’t fix his personal problems.
Back in 2019, had a very successful week at the Mexican Open, beating Rafael Nadal before winning the ATP 500 event in Acapulco, but off the court, it was the worst week of his life.
“Acapulco, the 500 that I won, it was the darkest week of my life. I was self-harming. I was thinking about suicide and then I won the tournament. And the media was like ‘he won the tournament. Is this the new Nick Kyrgios?’ And it was the worst I had ever been.”
“And then I realized, winning is not going to fix this like I was so unhappy and that was the worst week of my life. And I knew that winning was only going to make everyone else think that I was ok, but I knew I wasn’t okay.”
He was able to escape those feelings and is now doing much better, which is in part because of what he experienced there. He understood that what was going on had nothing to do with tennis. It was much bigger than tennis and much more important overall.
He needed to sort his life out, and he sought help. He ultimately got the help he needed and sorted his life out, getting it back on track. This experience showed him what truly mattered in his life, and that’s the people who were there for him, not necessarily the sport that was feeding him.
The turnaround has been spectacular. Not only is he feeling much better, but he’s had the best part of his tennis career after that experience. He’s also become quite an advocate for mental health, even dedicating himself to helping other people going through similar problems.
“I hated myself. I hated waking up and being Nick Kyrgios I hated going to places and tournaments and no one actually wanted to talk to me at face value.”
“They just wanted me to be the entertainer or the crazy Nick Kyrgios so I didn’t feel like who I actually was was of any worth and it just got out of control but then you know I somehow dug myself out of the hole.”
