Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios will be up against Novak Djokovic in the final of the Wimbledon 2022 on Sunday, 10 July. Kyrgios, who has been in the eye of the storm for his on and off court controversies, has been having a good grass court season.
The Australian tennis star’s brother, Christos wrote a column in the Sydney Morning Herald ahead of the final match and provided a keen perspective on the life of Nick and what led to his success in the Wimbledon this year, a competition where he came in unseeded.
“For a big chunk of the last six or seven years, I lost my little brother. That kid I grew up with, who was so carefree and engaging, was almost gone,” he was quoted as saying by the AFP.
“The world changed him. Tennis changed him. He became distracted; always worried about something. Even when you were with him, he wasn’t present in the moment.”
“He was a prisoner in his own body, going through the motions without any sense of happiness in the life he’d worked so hard to make for himself,” said his brother.
“I’d come over to visit mum and dad’s and Nick wouldn’t get out of bed before midday. And when he did, he was straight out the door. In four or five days, I’d see him for an hour.
“I missed my brother. I didn’t know this other person that he had become.”
Christos added that his brother regained control of his life after meeting his present partner Costeen Hatzi.
“She’s helped open his eyes again. She’s cut from that same cloth where family is the most important thing,” said Christos.
“There was a lot of chaos in Nick’s life before he met her. The way he wanted his life to be was not the way things were unfolding.”
“Seeing him mature and evolve back into the happy fulfilled version of himself is all that I could have asked for. For us, we’ve already got our baby brother back. Mum and Dad have got their son back,” he added.
Kyrgios has been fairly public about his struggles with mental health, something that he has called a dark period of his life in 2019. His reputation was marred once again, during the grass court tournament this year, when he was asked to appear in the court over a physical assault case from late last year.
Asked about the same, Kyrgios has maintained that he is unbothered by the allegations.
Kyrgios will be playing the number one seed Novak Djokovic on Sunday, at the centre court in Wimbledon. The match starts at 6:30 PM IST.
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