Like many others, I’ve just watched that match between Nick Kyrgios and Stephan Tsitsipas (number 4 seed) at Wimbledon (2022) which Kyrgios won with an amazing drop shot. Kyrgios was incredibly badly behaved in between playing sublime tennis. He plays shots that nobody else can and has immense courage but his ranting and raving, endless complaining, and histrionics were well beyond what is acceptable and his opponent described him as a bully in the post-match press conference. He also described him as having an evil side. He said: “He has a very evil side to him”. Kyrgios’s behavior was very unsportsmanlike and he was approaching the moment where he could have been disqualified. Tsitsipas also reached that moment as he was so wound up.
Nick Kyrgios also has a very good side and that, too, was admitted by Tsitsipas. To me, he appears to be a thoroughly tormented individual. His brain is constantly irritated and frustrated by the world. He needs to try and get as brain to calm down a bit. There’s no doubt in my mind that if he could achieve that he could win Wimbledon and any other grand slam. He is good enough, no question about it. He has the best serve of all the tennis players. It is totally awesome.
Back to the animals. Incidentally, I couldn’t find anything on the Internet which tells me that he has a pet, either a cat or dog. I do not see him having a cat but he might have a dog companion but I don’t think he has perhaps because he is travelling too much. He’s the kind of person who would have a companion dog but perhaps in the interests of dog welfare he feels that he is not able to discharge his responsibilities properly because he’s away from home too much.
In early 2020, Nick Kyrgios revealed that he “doesn’t eat meat or dairy any more” and it is because he “doesn’t believe in animal suffering”. He hasn’t gone vegetarian to support his health but is doing it to be in sympathy with the animals.
The news media tells me that he was devastated by the Australian bushfires which appear to have been exacerbated by global warming which in turn were ironically exacerbated by Australia’s coalmining. It is said that around 3 billion individual wild animals were killed by those fires. That was and is devastating to Australian conservationists who want to kill feral cats but they don’t want to do what they should do as humans to protect Australia’s native wild animals in terms of minimising global warming or stop building more human settlements destroying habitat.
Nick Kyrgios says that he is passionate about animal welfare. He said: “I’ve been passionate about animal welfare for some time now. I don’t eat meat or dairy anymore.”
Initially he struggled to be a vegetarian because “it was hard to stick to” as he travels a lot. But “since then I’ve managed to make it work, and I’ve been vegetarian for quite a while”.
He was touched by the plight of a koala bear that he saw on a patch of grass surrounded by burnt forest. He said: “With their homes on fire, these animals have nowhere to go. I saw a photo of a koala sitting on a patch of unburnt grass recently, with flames all around it. It was completely helpless.”
I think I know that particularly picture. There were some very sad pictures of burnt koalas hopping through charred forest. It’s a vision of Armageddon and if global warming gets worse as it will there be more of these Armageddon moments and the consequential devastation to wildlife and to the lives of humans.
I am sure that there are a lot of people like me who want Nick Kyrgios to feel less tormented, to enable him to fully express his fantastic tennis talent and win a grand slam event. He vents his anger at the world against humans. It is humans who bug him and drive him crazy. It is the injustice of human behaviour which annoys him. I am sure that with animals he is incredibly gentle, compassionate and well-behaved.
Below are some more articles on Australia.
