(Sydney) Nick Kyrgios was admitted to a psychiatric hospital while contemplating suicide during the Wimbledon tournament in 2019, reveals the Australian player in a new episode of the series Break Point, broadcast on Netflix from June 21.
“I was actually thinking about killing myself,” he said, according to The Australian newspaper.
A controversial darling of the public, Kyrgios had a very difficult year in 2019, regularly criticized for his escapades on the courts. Beaten by Rafael Nadal in the second round of Wimbledon, he says he wore a sleeve on his right arm during this match to cover his scars.
“I drank alcohol, I took drugs, I distanced myself from my family and my loved ones. I lost at Wimbledon, and when I woke up, my father was crying, sitting on my bed. That was the trigger, I said to myself “Ok, I can’t go on like this”. I ended up in a psychiatric ward in London to sort out my issues,” he said, according to The Australian.
“If you look closely, you can see signs of self-harm on my right arm. […] I had suicidal thoughts, I didn’t want to get up and find myself playing alone in front of millions” of people, he wrote on his Instagram account in February 2022 about his psychological health three years earlier .
Since then, Kyrgios has “completely recovered in the right direction” until reaching the Wimbledon final last year, losing to Novak Djokovic 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7/3 ).
Dropped to 25th in the world, he returned to competition this week in Stuttgart after a knee injury in January. Short of form, he was beaten by China’s Yibing Wu (64th) 7-5, 6-3 in just over an hour.
