Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios has opened up on the extent of his ‘brutal’ injuries claiming he has had to teach himself how to use his wrist all over again.
The 29-year-old is due to make his return to the court at the World Tennis League in December, having only played one game of professional tennis in the past two years due to injury.
He had ruled himself out of the Australian Open in 2023 due to a knee injury that required surgery, before having to pull out of the French Open later that year with a foot injury, which he is alleged to have sustained during a robbery at his home.
Kyrgios, who has won seven titles on the ATP Tour, subsequently tore a ligament in his wrist that has seen him spend the last 17 months on the sidelines.
While he has previously admitted that he may only have ‘one to two years’ left playing at the top level, he recently claimed that he would make a big comeback at the end of this year, as he hopes to win a Grand Slam before retiring.
Nick Kyrgios has opened up on his ‘brutal’ return to full fitness following a spate of injuries
The Aussie tennis star has been sidelined for the past year after he had to undergo surgery on a ruptured ligament in his wrist
Kyrgios appears to have been working hard to return to full fitness, telling 9News: ‘Honestly, this is probably the best I’ve felt in two years.’
He revealed that he had only a ’15 per cent chance’ to make it back to playing at his best, before lifting the lid on how hard his comeback has been.
‘Physically it was brutal,’ Kyrgios said. ‘Mentally, I wasn’t going to allow myself [to give up].
‘I always have wanted to leave the game of tennis myself. I wasn’t going to let this injury be the dictator of if I would ever play again.’
The former Wimbledon finalist has previously opened up on the severe pain that he had felt in his wrist, which left him ‘unable to open doors or jars’ according to The Canberra Times.
He had suffered a full rupture of the scapholunate ligament in his wrist – a band of tissue that provides strenght and stability to a person’s hand.
Since then, he has been taking some innovative measures to get his body back to full strength, revealing that he had even gone as far as hitting fluffy tennis balls kids use.
‘I honestly didn’t feel improvement in my wrist,’ he told 9News.
‘I started hitting fluffy balls that under-10s kids learn on. I had to start from there and basically learn how to use my right wrist all over again.’
Kyrgios, a Wimbledon singles finalist, has claimed that he wants to return to the court to win a Grand Slam
Kyrgios has been working as a pundit for the BBC and Eurosport while he’s been sidelined
In October, Kyrgios has previously claimed that he wants to win a Grand Slam and ‘shut people up’.
He is expected to feature at this summer’s Australian Open.
But injuries were never going to hold the Australian star back, and despite the hardships he has experienced over the past two years, Kyrgios claimed: ‘I have already won in my eyes.’
‘Now everything I do on the tennis court whether I win a match or a tournament or anything like that is going to be a bonus,’ he added.
