Will Nick Kyrgios win a Grand Slam title in 2018?

Sport360 staff 00:33 15/01/2018
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Mail
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Nick Kyrgios's career has been controversial to date.

    Will 2018 finally be the year when Nick Kyrgios fulfills his immense potential?

    There is no doubting the 22-year-old’s talent but his temperament, on-and-off-court behaviour and, at times, lack of effort on the tennis court have raised question marks over his desire to win majors.

    Here, ahead of the Australian Open, our two writers assess the Australian and whether we will see a major breakthrough from him over the next few months.

    Get in touch with your thoughts, too – via Twitter and Facebook.

    MATT MONAGHAN, SAYS YES:

    After finally appearing to win the grand battle against his mental demons, Nick Kyrgios is poised to conquer the men’s game.

    The enfant terrible turned into celebrated ATP World Tour winner for the first time in the early weeks of 2018, valiant victory at the Brisbane International providing a springboard to the sport’s grandest titles. An easy mistake is to purely concentrate on his homecoming at the Australian Open, beginning on Monday against Brazil’s Rogerio Dutra Silva.

    Yet even if this symbolic chance on home court slips by, promising signs point to a creditable Grand Slam-challenger emerging from his cocoon.

    At a time when countryman Bernard Tomic’s descent is speeding up and all that’s left is to “count money”, Kyrgios is moving just as rapidly in the other direction – his current ranking of 17 is his highest since August.

    The truculent figure who has openly admitted to ‘tanking’ – deliberately not playing to his abilities – up to eight times in his troubled past is just an awkward memory.

    Redemptive lessons have, belatedly, been learned from October’s first-round withdrawal at the Shanghai Masters and frank admission about his – then – shoddy dedication in the wake of an early exit at the US Open.

    An inner steel has been applied to match the aggressive, hard-serving game – perfect for Wimbledon and Australia, where he made the last eight in 2014 and 2015 – which should be the backbone of many Slam challenges. In Brisbane, he battled back from sets down in both the quarter and semi-finals before breezing past Ryan Harrison 6-4, 6-2 at a moment of expectation.

    In his troubled past, the bright lights would have led to an incendiary explosion. Not now, aged 22.

    Kyrgios did not come close to challenge for a Grand Slam last year, but the field has never been more open.
    Andy Murray is waylaid, Novak Djokovic unsure. Fitness can appear fleeting for Rafael Nadal, while Roger Federer’s Indian summer cannot last forever.

    The sun is setting on a golden generation. It is Kyrgios’ time to shine.

    MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - JANUARY 13: Nick Kyrgios of Australia plays a shot while wearing an Equality shirt during a practice session ahead of the 2018 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on January 13, 2018 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

    Can Kyrgios make a charge on home soil?

    CHRIS BAILEY, SAYS NO

    Nick Kyrgios has given us fresh hope many times before – don’t let him do it again.

    The Australian is a talent of such scarcity that, regardless of whether his head is fully screwed on, he will have his fair share of fine weeks and tournaments.

    The singularly impressive element of his run to the Brisbane International final was how he bounced back from conceding the first set to Matthew Ebden, Andrey Dolgopolov and Grigor Dimitrov.

    But you get the feeling that just as the sun and moon align once in a while, it will take some doing for Kyrgios to eclipse his victory in Brisbane this year.

    He straddles a wafer-thin line between genius and implosion every time he steps onto the court – expecting him to keep himself on the right side for two weeks and seven potential five-setters is fanciful.

    We saw just the hint of his rashness in the Brisbane final against Ryan Harrison. Kyrgios, quite rightly, complained to the umpire about Harrison’s lengthy toilet break between sets. But the way he kept bludgeoning his point, without a filter, further underlined his tendency to let rather irrelevant things weigh on his mind.

    This is also the man – and at 22, he must be considered a fully-fledged one – who questioned his own commitment to tennis after crashing out in the first round of his last major to John Millman, the then world No. 235.

    “I played an hour of basketball before I played David Ferrer in the semi-final. I was going to ice cream, getting a milkshake every day,” he said after his US Open exit. “I was less dedicated. And this week I was dedicated, and my shoulder starts hurting. I don’t know.”

    Has he really changed his attitude around in less than six months? Or has he just decided to like tennis again because he’s in a purple patch?

    He’d headed to the US Open in fine fettle, too, having reached the final of Cincinnati. Yet 2017 went in the books as the year he won just two matches in the four Grand Slams.

    This is the time for the new generation to knock the Rogers and Rafas of the men’s tennis scene off their thrones, but Kyrgios will find a way to trip up on the palace steps.

    Recommended