By Richard Pagliaro | Sunday, July 2, 2023

Nick Kyrgios was flying high—and took tennis fans on a thrill ride—during his daring ascent to the 2022 Wimbledon final.

Returning to SW19, a candid Kyrgios concedes he's unsure of how he'll launch and how his landing gear will operate.

More: Wimbledon Preview

"I look at my preparations last year coming in, I probably had the most ideal preparation possible. It couldn't be any different this year," Kyrgios told the media at Wimbledon today. "I've been hitting with some really good players this week and my body is feeling okay. I'm going to take it one day at a time.

"I'm not going to look forward and put unfair expectations on myself. I'm just going to try to do everything I can, prepare, go out there and play some good tennis."



Coming off the best season of his career, Kyrgios ran into immediate turbulence in January.

The explosive Kyrgios underwent an arthroscopic surgery to clean up his lateral meniscus and remove a paralabral cyst from his knee in the final week of January. That surgery prevented Kyrgios from defending his Australian Open doubles championship with partner Thanasi Kokkinakis and taking a run at the AO singles title. 

Talking to the media today, Kyrgios said it's been "heartbreaking" and "brutal" trying to come back from his knee issues and seeing major opportunity pass.

"In a way it was good to be home. Obviously heartbreaking as well," Kyrgios said. "You're competing for Grand Slams. Last year I felt like everything kind of came together for me. Finals of Wimbledon. Barely lost a match. Had the third best season on tour.

"Obviously my body was just crying out for some sort of rest. I needed to do what I had to do. Yeah, it's been brutal. Yeah, it's been hard...

"I think pulling out of Australian Open was one of the hardest things I had to do because I generally feel like, with the tennis I was playing and with my Grand Slam experience, just the way I was feeling, I felt like I could win that tournament. Obviously from then I had to get surgery."



How will his surgically-repaired left knee respond to the rigors of his first best-of-five-set match in a year?

That's a question Kyrgios himself admits he can't answer ahead of his Wimbledon opener vs. two-time Wimbledon quarterfinalist David Goffin.

The man coach Patrick Mouratoglou calls the greatest server in Open Era history both launches his seismic serve from his left leg and lands on his left leg as well. Kyrgios looked pained at times in his opening-round Stuttgart loss to Yibing Wu last month.

Though he traveled to Mallorca, the cranky knee forced Kyrgios to withdraw from last week's Mallorca Championships. Consequently, he arrives at SW19 having played just two sets this season.

A candid Kyrgios concedes it's been tough coping with both internal and external expectations and suggests he lacks the match play to reproduce the dynamic level that dazzled London and the world last summer. 

"Yeah, it's been brutal because everyone is expecting you to be the same player that I was straightaway. That's been really hard," Kyrgios said. "Obviously I played a couple weeks ago in Stuttgart. I lost, and the criticism was enormous.

"My first match back, it was hard to kind of just be the same player that I was straightaway. Yeah, it's been hard. Like, I'm trying to expect the same sort of tennis that I was playing last year, and I don't think that's fair at the moment."

 

 

 

 

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Of course, you can't fake fitness or confidence at Wimbledon, yet Kyrgios is hoping his knee holds up, his wrecking ball serve is working and he can recapture some of his SW19 magic in a tough opening-round test.

"Look, I'm extremely confident. I've never been a player that needs a lot of matches before playing a Grand Slam," Kyrgios said. "I've always been kind of on the side of not playing too much.

"But, look, what I've achieved in my career never leaves. Like it never leaves you. Last year, it wasn't that long ago really. I feel like I'm still serving as good as ever. I'm still able to beat a lot of people on the court."

The 33rd-ranked Kyrgios has beaten the 32-year-old Goffin in three of four meetings, but this will be their first encounter in nearly five years and their first grass clash.

"I just got to take it day by day. I got David Goffin first round, someone who made quarterfinals last year," Kyrgios said. "He's had an amazing career, he knows how to win tennis matches.

"I'm just going to focus on that. That's all I'm focusing on at the moment, not so much what I did last year or what people want me to achieve this year."