Nick Kyrgios was suspended by the International Integrity Tennis Agency (ITIA) for testing positive for benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, after he tested positive for the substance at the Mallorca Championships in June. The Australian admitted to having off-court issues and didn't dispute that he had ingested cocaine, and he hasn't appealed his suspension.
The above situation would be a problem for any person, let alone a professional tennis player, but one of the layers of Kyrgios' personality is that he can be argumentative, abrasive, and throw proverbial stones at other players having their own issues. He was particularly harsh on Jannik Sinner after he was suspended in 2025 for three months for failing two drug tests at Indian Wells in 2024.
Because of Kyrgios' outspoken persona and ease of calling out other players, many might have assumed he was also set up to fail (and might have wanted him to). Stefanos Tsitsipas wasn't surprised by Kyrgios' suspension, and neither was Karen Khachanov.
Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov don't hold back about the Nick Kyrgios situation
Both players were asked about the Australian player's demise during the US Open. While using different words, both had the same opinion.
Tsitsipas said, "I don’t know what to tell you. To be entirely honest with you, I knew about this before the announcement. I’ll just tell you the truth. I knew about all this before any announcement was made. When I saw it on social media, I was like, ‘Here we go.’ I expected it to be honest...I’m not gonna try and cover up someone that I know the truth for. I consider myself a nice person with everyone. But these were behaviors that I personally heard on the tour."
Khachanov was less choosy with his words, and one would not come away from what he said with any confusion about how he felt about Kyrgios.
Speaking on First & Red, the Russian said, "He always loved to s*** on people even when he wasn't playing, constantly those tweets or whatever. And now that it's come back to haunt him, what is there to say? You reap what you sow. So, to be honest, it’s not that I'm not surprised or not feeling sorry for him on some level. This is a logical development of the situation. What he got caught doing was his own choice. Not to mention the fact that last year he was tweeting about Sinner or someone else that he doesn't play doubles with people who dope. What goes around comes around."
One might assume that many players feel the same way about Nick Kyrgios as Tsitsipas and Khachanov do, at least about his failed drug test. The shame is that Kyrgios only has himself to blame, not for his decision to take drugs, but for how he talked about other players as if he were a better person than they were.
If Kyrgios truly serves a four-year ban, he will be 35 years old if he wanted to try to return to tennis. He would still be young enough to do so, though he has struggled with so many injuries that most of his career has already been a waste.
During those four years, however, he has a lot to repair in terms of his relationships with other players. If he doesn't do that, few would welcome him back to the sport warmly.
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