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No player has dazzled the world with a combination of power, speed, huge serving and tennis magic as stunningly as Nick Kyrgios. The amazing Aussie is so formidable on the court that he managed to defeat Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic the first times he played each.

But when a talent is so massively developed in certain areas, it’s natural that this talent could be extremely flawed and weak and underdeveloped in certain other areas.

It’s become clear by now that Kyrgios can play with the very best at their peak and he can beat any man, with his nuclear serving and lethal groundstrokes especially the forehand. But it’s also clear by now that Kyrgios doesn’t always feel like playing or summoning the highest level of his tennis skillset. Sometimes he’d just prefer to play around without the extra burden of dealing with pressure and expectations. Not unlike how a stealth hunter cat sometimes likes to just play with his helpless prey for personal pleasure and amusement.

There have been many examples of wasted talents in pro tennis – Marcelo Rios, Alberto Mancini, David Nalbandian, Marat Safin to name a few. What sets the 23 year old Kyrgios apart from these players is that he has not even come close to winning a major title or a Masters 1000 title.

At least Rios, for all his faults as a competitor in the later years of his career, became ATP world no. 1 and reached the Australian Open final at age 22 and he won four Masters Series titles. As talented as Rios was, the elite players of his era felt the Rios game lacked the necessary power and top notch serve to consistently beat the elites. Sampras said he always felt the Rios game lacked “heft.” Sampras was 2-0 vs Rios. Rios also had great difficulty with certain other elite players, particularly Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Jiri Novak, Lleyton Hewitt, which proved that Rios had limitations at the elite echelon. Rios was great but he had a ceiling and was unable to subdue certain elite players.

Kyrgios does not have limitations, he has shown he can beat anyone and everyone – when he is mentally and physically up for the task. The problem is the majority of the time, Kyrgios, for whatever reasons in his mental make up, can’t inspire himself to evoke the extraordinary gifts he has inside. One tennis expert recently said he thinks the reason Kyrgios underachieves is because he’s actually afraid of losing and by tanking, it allows him the security of knowing he lost because he didn’t try, which is more acceptable than losing because he wasn’t good enough.

Maybe deep down Nick doesn’t believe he is good enough. In my new book Facing Marat Safin, one player told me he practiced with Safin shortly after his historic US Open win in 2000 and Safin was struggling with all the expectations of him to take over and dominate the sport like the next young
Pete Sampras. Safin actually admitted, “Everybody tells me I should be no. 1. Maybe I’m not good enough.”

Perhaps Kyrgios feels the same way as young Safin did?

Like Safin, Kyrgios is without a doubt, a tennis genius. And as it’s been said, “All genius is touched by madness.”

We will just have to wait and see if Kyrgios can sort out his inner madness and genius foibles and let the side we all want to see take over and dominate. Because he’s just too fine a player to be tagged with the label “the biggest waste of talent in tennis history.”

We all want to see Nick live up to his potential and expectations and be tagged with a different label: “One of the great champions of tennis history and future Hall of Famer.”