{"id":353471,"date":"2023-12-12T18:23:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T19:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=353471"},"modified":"2023-12-12T20:01:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T20:01:43","slug":"dark-reality-behind-kyrgios-photo-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=353471","title":{"rendered":"'Dark' reality behind Kyrgios photo revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennis star Nick Kyrgios<\/a> has given a sobering insight into his mental health struggles, revealing he fought "suicidal thoughts" minutes before one of his biggest career wins.<\/p>\n

\ufeffKyrgios' straight-sets win over Alexander Zverev at the 2019 Mexican Open<\/a> is seen as one of the Aussie's major triumphs and was the second ATP 500 series win of his career.<\/p>\n

However, the 28-year-old\ufeff has now revealed how he had to be talked into playing the final by his team.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Entire Tigers board sacked, CEO resigns<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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"I was having decent results during that time, and the media was like, 'Is this a new Nick Kyrgios?', and I was like, 'This is the darkest period of my life'," he told the On Purpose with Jay Shetty<\/em> podcast.<\/p>\n

"There was a tournament in Mexico, Acapulco, where I was having suicidal thoughts and I was just on the balcony of my hotel and I was genuinely thinking about it.<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/p>\n

"My team was like, 'Oh, we've got to play in 10 minutes', and then I'm going out on court, played amazing, won the tournament.<\/p>\n

"Everyone globally was thinking, 'Wow, is this the person that we've all been waiting for' when I was really on the brink of everything.<\/p>\n

"That's so scary because no one else knew what was going on. It was really hard.\ufeff"<\/p>\n

Kyrgios' mental health battle during the early parts of his career is no secret, and he called it "self-inflicted pain".<\/p>\n

"\ufeffI think about that time, I just was not thinking clearly. I was drinking every night. At the time I thought it was just fun, but it wasn't fun," he said.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffI had friends around me telling me it wasn't healthy and I ignored them.<\/p>\n

\"ACAPULCO,<\/p>\n

"I found myself going to a psychiatric ward in London and I had to play (Rafael) Nadal the next day (at Wimbledon).<\/p>\n

"Everyone would assume that I was doing fine. I was answering questions and they told me that I should stay in this psychiatric ward for two weeks and be reassessed, and I was playing Nadal the next day.<\/p>\n

"I looked at myself (and) I was like, 'I can't do this. I have to somehow change these habits'.<\/p>\n

"I had self-harm (scars) everywhere. I had to wear an arm sleeve on the centre court of Wimbledon and no one knew any of these problems, and it was hard.<\/p>\n

"I look back and I just don't know how I got out of it to be honest, I was such a mess."<\/p>\n

Kyrgios has long been cast as the "bad boy" of Australian tennis but said he was deeply misunderstood.<\/p>\n

\"Kyrgios'<\/p>\n

"\ufeffThey've branded me like I'm crazy, I'm a bad boy," he said.<\/p>\n

"My family and my closest people know that I'm quite generous. I'm quite caring. I'm intellectually switched on. I like having deep conversations and I try my best to make other people feel comfortable.<\/p>\n

"I know what it's like to be overweight, insecure. I love when I see kids that are a bit like, I guess, myself at a younger age, I love that. I go up to them, I make them feel like, if I can do it, you can do it.<\/p>\n

"So that's been one of the hardest things in my career is like everyone I meet thinks that I'm just a bad person. I've got a crazy temper, but then off the court, it's like a completely opposite person.<\/p>\n

"It's been really, really hard to shake that and it's taken years.<\/p>\n

"Only now I feel like people kind of understand how I am on the court and how I am off the court, but it's been hard."<\/p>\n

If you or anyone you know needs immediate support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via<\/strong><\/em> lifeline.org.au<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. In an emergency, call 000.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennis star Nick Kyrgios has given a sobering insight into his mental health struggles, revealing he fought "suicidal thoughts" minutes before one of his biggest […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":353473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353471"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":353476,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353471\/revisions\/353476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/353473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}