Nick Kyrgios is already a Grand Slam finalist and paid his respects to Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal ahead of the Wimbledon final. On Thursday, Nadal announced that he was withdrawing from his Wimbledon semi-final, giving Kyrgios a bye into the final.
Although Kyrgios did not take the field on Friday, he did give a press conference. “We will never see a competitor like Rafa again. You will never see someone who handles the racket like Roger, effortlessly. You will probably never see anyone who just wins and plays the match as well as Djokovic.
I don’t think anyone fills those shoes,” Kyrgios said, per Ravi Ubha. The match between Kyrgios and Nadal was expected to be a pure showdown and tennis fans around the world were left sorely disappointed after the Spaniard’s withdrawal.
Kyrgios himself was very excited to play Nadal on Center Court at Wimbledon. “Honestly, my first feeling was a bit of disappointment. My energy was so focused on playing against him (Rafa) and on the tactics of how I’m going to go out there to play, the emotions of going out on the court, all that kind of stuff.
Wimbledon,” Kyrgios said. Furthermore, Kyrgios revealed that Djokovic sent him a message earlier this week and said he would like to see him on Sunday, meaning he would like to play him in the Wimbledon final. “Now we have a kind of bromance.
Since I was the only player who supported him in the Australian Open drama, I think respect is earned, not on the tennis courts, but in real life. In fact, we sent each other text messages on Instagram and other things, it’s a little weird.”
Djokovic is among the greatest ever
Novak Djokovic spoke in detail about the injury he suffered during the match against Fritz while speaking about Rafael Nadal’s injury, which he also sustained while facing the American.
“I don’t know exactly what kind of injury he (Nadal) has,” Djokovic told Serbian reporters. “From what I’ve heard, it’s a torn stomach muscle – but I don’t know which one. I experienced a rupture of a muscle on the left side, which ruptured in the third round against Fritz.
I wrote down everything that happened to me at the time, and if your question was aimed at the fact that some people did not believe that it was possible to play with such an injury – I can say that it is terribly difficult.
I drank all the painkillers in the world and did every possible therapy and treatment,” Djokovic added. “I was on machines, devices and I noted and recorded all of that in a documentary that will be broadcast by the end of the year. Well, let people watch it and then they will be able to convince themselves of one or the other”
