Once carefree and loose, tennis’s most gifted, polarising and enigmatic talent finally feels ready to cash in on his rich potential and hopes it happens this fortnight in New York.
“I feel like in this part of my career, I just don’t want to let people down,” Kyrgios said ahead of his third-round US Open clash with American wildcard J.J. Wolf on Friday night (11am Saturday AEST).
“I feel like I’m representing so many people. I know how much work goes into it with my team. There’s a lot of people supporting me.
“I just remember doing a press conference here, like maybe three or four years ago, I lost in the third round. I just felt horrible because I kept not exceeding expectations, (not) winning.
“So I’m sitting here feeling like this is probably the most pressure I’ve had on myself. I know I’m capable of going to a slam final now and I really want to achieve. I want to bring my team with me. I want to do it together.”
The flashy showman, who hadn’t even progressed to a grand slam semi until seven weeks ago, has finally come to accept than winning ugly is okay.
“I’m definitely a perfectionist on the court,” Kyrgios said.
“I feel like I can play like four or five great points, then I play one point and I’m going nuts. It’s okay, I don’t know. It’s hard.
“But I want to have success with certain people. I want to do it. That’s probably why I’m having such high expectations and standards.”
The 27-year-said the penny only dropped with his charge at the All England Club, where it took 21-times major champion Novak Djokovic to stop him in an enthralling climax to the championships.
“The Wimbledon final was a turning point, I think, for me mentally,” Kyrgios said.
“If I won that match, I don’t know where my motivation would have been at. Losing it and being so close, it was really tough for me to swallow.
“But this year’s been amazing in so many different ways. For my tennis, I kind of wanted to almost reinvent myself, get back to the top of the game where I know I belong.
“Winning Washington, winning so many matches, I just feel like I thought the pressure would be off me after winning Wimbledon – ‘He’s a Wimbledon finalist, he’s nearly over-the-hump-type thing’.
“I didn’t think I’d be putting this amount of pressure on myself. Every day I come in, I watch what I eat, I try and get sleep. Like every practice session I try and have good intent.
“I almost don’t know who I am anymore, to be honest, because that’s not me.
“Trying to balance so many different things out. It’s hard as well. The media, the fans are crazy everywhere I go. I’m trying to balance my personal life as well as my tennis. It’s just a lot.
“I feel like I’m really professional right now. I never thought that the Wimbledon final would make me that way.
“I thought it would be the other way, the reverse, almost a bit lax and a bit chilled with it.
“Yeah, it’s stressful.”
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