By Victor Kanayo
Tennis star Nick Kyrgios has revealed how he thought of committing suicide after he lost out early at the 2019 Wimbledon.
The contemplation, according to him, was after he was beaten by Rafael Nadal in the second round.
Kyrgios, an Australian said in a documentary tagged, Break Point, “I was drinking, abusing drugs, I hated the kind of person I was.”
“I lost at Wimbledon. I woke up and my dad was sitting on the bed, full-blown crying. That was the big wake-up call for me.
“I was like, OK, I can’t keep doing this. I ended up in a psych ward in London to figure out my problems.
“I was genuinely contemplating if I wanted to commit suicide,” he says in the documentary, due to be released on Netflix later this month.
“That pressure, having that ‘all eyes on you’ expectation, I couldn’t deal with it. I hated the kind of person I was.
“I lost my relationship with my family, pushed all my close friends away.
“You could tell I was hurting. My whole arm was covered in scars. That’s why I actually got my arm sleeve, to cover it all.”
Kyrgios has now returned to the court for the first time on Tuesday at the Stuttgart Open in Germany, where he lost to China’s Wu Yibing in the opening round.
After reaching the final of Wimbledon last year, where he was beaten by 23-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, Kyrgios sustained a knee injury which resulted in him having surgery to repair a small tear in his left lateral meniscus in January.
Kyrgios is expected to compete at this year’s Wimbledon in July.
