AUSTRALIAN tennis star Nick Kyrgios has revealed he spent time in a psychiatric ward following a loss at Wimbledon in 2019 because of suicidal thoughts.
The comments from Kyrgios, widely published in Australia on Thursday, June 15, 2023, based on interviews for the upcoming Netflix documentary series “Break Point,” are the latest on his longtime struggles with mental health.
He went to a hospital in London to “figure out my problems” after the loss to Rafael Nadal four years ago at Wimbledon, where he wore a compression sleeve over his right arm during his singles matches to conceal his scars.
“I was genuinely contemplating suicide,” Kyrgios said, in comments published by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “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.”
Kyrgios said he was “drinking, abusing drugs” and his relationships with family and friends were deteriorating.
“That pressure, having that all-eyes-on-you expectation, I couldn’t deal with it,” he said. “I hated the kind of person I was.”
Kyrgios, who has previously discussed his mental health struggles on social media and in interviews, has spent many months on the sidelines with injuries since reaching the 2022 Wimbledon final, which he lost to Novak Djokovic. (AP)