{"id":94608,"date":"2021-07-03T07:41:19","date_gmt":"2021-07-03T07:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=94608"},"modified":"2021-07-03T09:00:35","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T09:00:35","slug":"kyrgios-reveals-awful-toll-of-social-media-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=94608","title":{"rendered":"Kyrgios reveals 'awful' toll of social media abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Kyrgios<\/a> has given a sobering glimpse into the reality of being a globally-recognised athlete, revealing the impact of social media abuse he has endured over the years.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios has been a polarising athlete since bursting onto the tennis circuit by beating Rafael Nadal in his maiden Wimbledon<\/a> campaign back in 2014, but has seen his popularity skyrocket in recent years on the back of inspiring Australian Open runs and his off-court philanthropy.<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> What Kyrgios won't cop from critics anymore<\/a><\/p>\n

While Kyrgios has matured into a confident and self-assured 26-year-old, he says it was not always the case, particularly as trolls ate away at him and destroyed his confidence.<\/p>\n

"People are just idiots, really, on social media," he said after securing a win in his mixed doubles debut with Venus Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"Everyone seems to think they have some sort of voice on social media and it's bad because it can affect people's mental health.<\/p>\n

"I'm a player that deals with it every single day. Now that I don't care about it, I still see it and it's not so easy to block out. It's taken me years and years of resilience and maturity to now not really care about it so much. But it affects people."<\/p>\n

Kyrgios admitted that the social media torment got so bad at one point that he didn't feel like walking onto the court.<\/p>\n

"It got really bad for me to the point where I didn't want to play tournaments," he said.<\/p>\n

"I didn't want to go out there and play because I knew all I was receiving were negative comments that were hurtful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"Whether it was racism comments, racial slurs, just little things or anything that would destroy my confidence.<\/p>\n

"With the way social media's going it's always going to be there.<\/p>\n

"You have people that have nothing going on in their life and are so hateful. They have such a s–t life that they just have to find things to beat down other people. It's awful, it's really tough."<\/p>\n

Incredibly, the abuse he received wasn't limited to online comments and messages, with Kyrgios claiming that he had been criticised by his own coaches as he rose through the ranks.<\/p>\n

"At one stage I was an overweight kid from Canberra who was told numerous times from every single coach, 'You may as well retire', all this bulls–t," he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"I'm proud of who I am and who I've become and what I've achieved in this sport. Everything now is a bonus for me.<\/p>\n

"I wouldn't want to have my time again. I've overcome a lot and I'm just proud at the end of the day."<\/p>\n

Kyrgios has made a terrific start to his singles campaign at Wimbledon as well, with wins over Ugo Humbert and Gianluca Mager through the first two rounds.<\/p>\n

The Australian will aim to make it through to the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time since 2016 when he faces Canadian young gun Felix Auger Aliassime in a blockbuster third-round clash.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nick Kyrgios has given a sobering glimpse into the reality of being a globally-recognised athlete, revealing the impact of social media abuse he has endured […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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\/94608"}],"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=94608"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94610,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94608\/revisions\/94610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}