best ever article on a so-called sportsman


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And I do not care if this makes me part of the old fogeys brigade.

 

Nick Kyrgios has shown zero regard for what we think of him - let's reciprocate

By Malcolm Knox

Here's a question for the Australian sporting public: Have you any self-respect? Or are a few cheap wins all that stand between you and the surrender of your pride?

Australia's moral bottom line is for sale, and the transaction is being run by Nick Kyrgios, sometime professional tennis player and amateur auctioneer. Kyrgios, if you didn't know, put his car up for sale on his Facebook page this week. But in wearing the national colours for Australia's Davis Cup tie with the US in Brisbane over the weekend, he is also taking bids on the price of our national sporting principles.

I have not bothered to write about Kyrgios in this column previously. One thing he and I have in common is that neither of us is all that interested in tennis. But Kyrgios is the chump; he's the one trapped in it. The rest of us can walk away from this most pointless of corporate advertising vehicles, but he is snared by his own prodigious talent, poor dear, and can't break out into his preferred professions of basketballer, car salesman or gentleman of leisure because, bless his cotton ankle socks, he is, like his heroic forebears in the land of Homer, cursed by too much talent.

Kyrgios' talent is such that, in spite of his best efforts, he is on a path to fulfilment. His results this year suggest he is not only unable to avoid the destiny that his natural gifts bestow but is also luckier than he deserves, rising to the top just as a lot of tall timber is falling around him. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are enjoying an Indian summer before they take their leave, and behind them, the Djokovic-Murray generation is showing signs of burnout. Kyrgios' time is nigh.

Now for Australia to ask itself: will on-court success whitewash their reservations about Kyrgios' personality? Should he reach his potential and begin winning major tournaments, will Australia forgive him (or script for their own absolution and willed amnesia), and rewrite the past as a story of perfectly understandable youthful indiscretion? Will the Davis Cup – a green-and-goldwash of reputation-laundering – be Kyrgios' avenue to redemption?

Shame on you, Australia, for even contemplating it.

In case that path seems well-trodden, it's not. Look at Lleyton Hewitt, courtside, the patron saint of redeemed bad boys. Hewitt grew up in the public eye, made his mistakes, but then transformed himself from uncouth bogan into national treasure. But Hewitt never had to climb out of a gutter as deep as Kyrgios'. He was not quite comme il faut, but never so wantonly foul.

Nor was it winning titles that earnt him the public's love. When Hewitt was, briefly, the world's best player and the winner of Wimbledon and a US Open (at which Kyrgios has never proceeded beyond the round of eight), he still carried the stigma of his occasional displays of ignorant temper. What absolved Hewitt was not success, nor even his commitment to Davis Cup, but his long, long, long career of giving every ounce of his energy and willpower to his game.

Hewitt was far more loved as the eternal middle-aged battler, giving his all year after year, chasing down every ball even when the game had left him behind, than he ever was as a brash youngster. It wasn't success that saved him, but sheer persistence. We resisted him, but he ended up wearing us down. Whatever else we thought of him, we had to bow to his epic determination.

Perhaps Kyrgios will still be courageously chasing down younger opponents in his 30s. Hard to see, when the generation gap between him and his seniors is so deep. Why would he have respect for his own seniority when he has so little for anybody else's? During his duel with Roger Federer at Indian Wells last week, Federer's wife Mirka – the Dorian Grey portrait of Roger's true feelings – was catcalling the Australian. At the end of the match, which should have been a celebration of tennis for tennis' sake, Kyrgios threw his toys out of his cot while Federer looked as if the first thing on his list, after having to shake his opponent's hand, was to have a wash. Kyrgios has earnt this treatment through his actions and his words. He cannot complain that he is not being valued, among his peers, at his true worth.

But will some wins for Australia win Australia over? It's a depressing thought. Yes, we all love a winner, but at what cost? Do we have no principles at all?

A lot of the Kyrgios-forgiveness line is engraved around the pressures of individual sports. The young man is on his own, he is exposed on the court, he lacks the warm bosom of a team to sink into and hide behind, so the outbursts of temper are entirely understandable. And other crap of this kind.

Look at some other young Australian individual sportsmen plying their trade this weekend. Jason Day has carried his debt to his mother with a love that is plain to see and heart-wrenching in its naked authenticity. Adam Scott and the other Australians at Augusta National have brought nothing but credit upon their country and their sport through their conduct over the years. What has Kyrgios got, next to these men?

Look to the west, where surfer Owen Wright continues to overcome a brain injury that left him with a terrifying future, looking at one point as if he might never be able to hold a coherent thought, let alone practise his sport. After a 15-month convalescence, Wright came back to defeat the best in the world at Snapper Rocks last month and has extended his world championship lead taking on ground-shaking waves at Margaret River. This is courage.

These are young professionals in individual sports with all the same excuses for being dickheads that Kyrgios leans on – uneducated, precociously spoilt, insulated from the real world – and yet, when the real world has broken into their bubble, the likes of Day and Wright have shown true character, true bravery. They don't need to win in their sports to gain our admiration. They have gained it already, for who they are.

So enough of the rubbish. Kyrgios himself has shown zero regard for what Australians think of him, and that disregard ought to be mutual. But will it? If he brings down the US in the Davis Cup, if he goes on to win Wimbledon and Flushing Meadow and Melbourne Park, Kyrgios will still be Kyrgios. But what of you, Australia – how will you be changed?

 

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20 minutes ago, planetary said:

I wholeheartedly agree that Kyrgios is an arse clown, but the author lost me at "this most pointless of corporate advertising vehicles".  Philistine.

that was a bit of a cheap shot. he does make it clear that he has no interest in tennis (personally, my interest is a mere fraction of what it used to be) but that should not mean he has to demean a sport many love. and which can be brilliant on occasion.

the writer is usually a cricket writer and a pretty good one. i think he has done a few books as well, including a novel or two? i think they were well received.

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