A smiling, smitten Nick Kyrgios on Thursday said that he has never felt better following his first-round win at Indian Wells — and made it clear girlfriend Costeen Hatzi is a big reason why he feels he has come of age.
The Australian overwhelmed young Argentine Sebastian Baez 6-4, 6-0 in a little over an hour.
“I’m just excited to be back at this tournament. It has been a couple years because of the pandemic, and taking time off to get my mind and body right,” he told reporters after the win.
Photo: AP
Kyrgios had become as well known for his on-court antics and outbursts as he was for his punishing serve, but he said he is finally free of the knee pain that plagued him for the past year and a half, and is in a great place emotionally.
Asked what contributed to his improved mindset, he smiled and pointed to Hatzi, who was seated in the news conference.
“I was really struggling. I wasn’t happy,” he said. “The tennis world wanted me to be a certain player and I was trying to be something that I wasn’t for so many years. It put me in a dark place. I was letting people down, I fell out with my family. It was tough.”
“One day I looked in the mirror and said that this isn’t the type of person that I’m trying to be, and now I’m a completely different person. I’m comfortable in my own skin,” he added. “I’m Nick Kyrgios, and I just go out there and play and have fun, and if I win, I win, and if I lose, I lose. Life is good.”
Asked how he celebrated the Grand Slam doubles title he won with childhood friend Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Australian Open in January, the 26-year-old said they took different paths.
“He stayed in Melbourne for three days, and I took the first flight out with my girlfriend and we went back to Sydney,” he said.
“I’ve come of age, man,” he added with a smile.
SSC Napoli on Saturday further extended their grip on the Serie A title race by beating local rivals US Salernitana 1919 2-0 to temporarily move 12 points ahead of the chasing pack. Goals from Giovanni di Lorenzo and Victor Osimhen immediately either side of halftime made sure that Napoli would be at least nine points clear at the halfway point of the season after a straight-forward win in soaking Salerno. Luciano Spalletti’s side now have to wait until their closest rivals AC Milan take on UEFA Champions League-chasing SS Lazio in Rome tomorrow to know just how far in front they would
A decade ago when the whippet-like Nairo Quintana burst onto the scene with stunning mountain escapes, Colombian cyclists looked poised to take over the world, but now the nation is in shock as three of its biggest stars flounder for very different reasons. At 32, Quintana is still Colombia’s most popular “beetle” — as its cyclists are known collectively — but he cannot even find a team. Egan Bernal, the only Colombian to win the Tour de France, is struggling to rediscover his former level after a near-fatal training crash, while Miguel Angel Lopez, nicknamed “Superman,” was kicked out of his team
POLEAXED: Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina swept past last year’s French Open and US Open winner Iga Swiatek at a stunned Rod Laver Arena Top seed Iga Swiatek and a tearful Coco Gauff both crashed out in straight sets in the round-of-16 yesterday on another day of shocks at the Australian Open, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching advanced to the third round of the women’s doubles. Swiatek’s defeat to Elena Rybakina makes it the first Grand Slam in the Open era — since 1968 — to lose the top two seeds in the men’s and women’s draws before the quarter-finals. There was no such trouble for Jessica Pegula, as the American third seed surged into the last eight with a 7-5, 6-2 win over former French Open
FIGHTBACK SUNDAY: The remarkable reversal was just one comeback on a night that saw the Brooklyn Nets beat NBA champions the Golden State Warriors LeBron James on Sunday scored 20 of his 37 points in the second half as the Los Angeles Lakers rallied from a 25-point halftime deficit to stun the Portland Trail Blazers 121-112. The Lakers, who scored just 13 points to Portland’s 45 in the second quarter, roared back to become the first team to win a game in which they lost a quarter by 30 or more points since the Boston Celtics against the Buffalo Braves in 1972. The remarkable reversal was just one dramatic comeback on a night that saw the Brooklyn Nets — led by 38 points from an inspired
RSS