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What are the odds that this version of Nick Kyrgios wins the US Open- and can a win make him a hall-of-famer?

By Myre Aberdan

NEW YORK, USA, September 04: Nick Kyrgios of Australia in action during his match against Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the Men's Singles fourth round match on Arthur Ashe Stadium during the US Open Tennis Championship 2022 at the USTA National Tennis Centre on September 4th 2022 in Flushing, Queens, New York City. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
NEW YORK, USA, September 04: Nick Kyrgios of Australia in action during his match against Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the Men's Singles fourth round match on Arthur Ashe Stadium during the US Open Tennis Championship 2022 at the USTA National Tennis Centre on September 4th 2022 in Flushing, Queens, New York City. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images) /
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The post-pandemic world has cooked up a lot of surprises. It is almost fitting that Nick Kyrgios is reaching yet another grand slam quarterfinal- in what feels like a post-Armageddon world. With the worldwide pandemic, which started 2 years ago, finally seeming like it is coming to a total end,  Nick Kyrgios has the chance to be the first Australian ito win the US Open since Lleyton Hewitt in 2001.

What most people don’t realise is how much of that win from Lleyton Hewitt is steeped in history. Hewitt made the front page of the New York times the very next day after his win,. The day after that? The front page of every major newspaper in the world was sprawled with the most shocking event of the 21st century: 9-11 and the collapse of the World Trade Centre in New York.

Nevertheless, over the years, many many pundits have dismissed Nick Kyrgios’s chances of making a grand slam final. For Nick, it has been a very long time coming. Over the past 6-7 years, Nick Kyrgios, for some reason, had always seemed to sell himself short at majors. A prodigious talent with weapons almost no player in recent memory had in combination, Kyrgios has finally begun to show what he is truly capable of doing in the sport.

At the moment, Kyrgios is in an elite club of players to have made a grand slams final Players like Jo Wilfred Tsonga, David Ferrer, Tomas Berdych, David Nalbandian. For Kyrgios already, a major career redemption arc has taken place. By qualifying for the semi final, Nick Kyrgios became the first Australian male into a grand slam semi-final since Lleyton Hewitt in 2005.

However, as of last month, Zverev, Tsitsipas and Ruud and Berretini have only come as far as Nick, technically. If Nick was to win the US Open, and win grand slam number 1, one could reasonably deduce that he has overtaken these players, career wise. Which is an astounding proposition, given where Nick Kyrgios was 12 months ago, losing in early rounds of grand slams.

It’s not every day that you see Nick Kyrgios manage to pull it all together at a major. After his defeat in the final of Wimbledon, Kyrgios suggested that he may have had a better chance of winning Wimbledon had anybody except Novak Djokovic been on the other side of the net. Funnily enough this is chance. At US Open 2020, Dominic Thiem was able to win a grand slam in the most fortunate of windows: an event where Djokovic, Nadal and Federer were absent from the quarterfinal stages. For Nick, this is his moment. Only time will tell if he can capitalise on his opportunity- and perhaps become a hall-of-famer in the span of 7 days.

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