“I’m just disappointed, you know? If I really applied myself, I feel I could’ve come up with a better effort. I mean, the stadium lights and video games? I just feel I could’ve done better. It wasn’t my finest work that’s for sure.”
Nick Kyrgios lost in straight sets this morning to Andrey Rublev.
Ideally, he would’ve liked to win the match. However, what really bothered him was the lack of effort and creativity in what Nick considers the most important part of every match, the excuse-making.
Nick prides himself on coming up with terrific excuses after each loss. His go-to is to outline that he doesn’t practice much, with the implication that he would’ve won if he’d trained more. At Wimbledon, he popped out to have a couple of beers the night before a huge match against Nadal.
His venue of choice “backfired” when he was spotted by some journalists who were dining there. As it turned out, Nick had chosen a pub that is always full of tennis journalists. They obligingly reported that he would’ve had a better chance if he hadn’t done that.
By Nick’s standards, his excuses at this US Open were not his finest work. In the press-conference, he blamed the stadium lights. But it was during the match itself that he laid the groundwork for a rather weird angle he’d been working on.
When it became apparent that he was going to lose and need some excuses, he started yelling out to his box.
“It’s gaming bro.... Call of a Duty has ruined me.”
The point of this bizarre ranting was that he had been playing video games to such an extent that he had been rendered blind.
Of course he would’ve won the match. The take-home message that Nick wanted everyone to leave with was that he is way more talented than Rublev. He just lost because he’s blind. It was actually a heroic effort to win a few games without the ability to see.
After the mania of the match and press-conference had died down, Nick had time to reflect on his excuse-making.
“Yeah not my best effort bro. I choked. I had to think on the spot and bad things always happen when I do that. I should’ve just said I lost because of basketball or some shit. I don’t think anyone believed I was blind unfortunately. I think people reckon I was just beaten by a better player on the day.”
At that point, Kyrgios began to weep. Nothing makes him sadder than people realising he was beaten fair and square.