Nick Kyrgios still has a lot to learn after French Open loss

By Geoff Nichols | May 30, 2015

Nick Kyrgios still has a lot to learn after French Open loss

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Watching Nick Kyrgios in the French Open third round made it painfully clear that he is not the finishes article and in fact far from it. He sprayed just as many crazy errors as jaw dropping winners and Andy Murray really had him on a string for much of the match.

The tone was set oddly enough by Kyrgios’ unusual attire, sporting a baseball cap backwards for the first three games before abandoning altogether. It was small but strange decision for the Australian, who must shift more of his focus to the tennis itself.

His self talk was bordering on ludicrous from the outset. I am not a tennis fan who is offended by the language used on court, but I found myself disbelieving some of the things he was saying. Murray up the other hand, also struggling for focus, must have been feeding off this.

At one point Kyrgios fired a ball with all his power out the stadium. It was a show of petulance he will rightly pick up a fine for and really summed up his attitude all day. When the going gets tough the current Big Four have shown, even in their youth, that they will fight to the end. Kyrgios has a different character.

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It is certainly difficult to be overly critical of a 20 year old who clearly has talent by the bucket load. Some of the winners abounding from his racket defied belief. Murray, one of the best movers on tour, was getting nowhere near some of his angled backhand drives, which is his weakest shot, apparently.

The first serve didn’t click for Kyrgios and that was a source of much of the frustration. However, if he looked to the other end of the court, Murray was producing even less first serves, but remained positive once the point began. Kyrgios too often let his emotions spill over into the next point.

He dropped his serve on a couple of occasions when it seemed like he mentally checkout out of the game. I like the speed at which he plays the sport, it is refreshing in many ways, but when he rushes too much it can get messy.

The high risk strategy he takes when facing break points and hitting aggressive second serves needs to be looked at. Not once did it pay dividends for him against Murray and it is too low percentage a play to be using on the big points in a match.

Kyrgios is destined for the very top. He has too much talent not to break into the Top 10 and go deep in many majors. Time is on his side and there is no great rush to making him the finished article, but the ultimate aim must be honing his attitude to get through seven five set matches and win a Grand Slam.

Next: What can Rafael Nadal achieve on the clay?

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