Michael Blucher: A young man slowly winning the battle with himself
A few years ago now, I remember a high profile professional athlete telling me he’d “earned the right to be a dick”.
Yep, that’s right. His thinking was 100% crystal clear.
He’d worked so bloody hard for so bloody long, made so many bloody sacrifices to be successful. And if he wanted to be a dick, if he wanted to treat people appallingly, he was entitled to do so.
Oh.
I was tempted at that moment to congratulate him on having perfected his craft. But I figured that’d just make me a bit of a dick as well.
I understood where he was coming from. I likened the mindset to a gabillionaire businessman, splashing about obscene amounts of cash. If someone wanted to invest his hard earned in slow race horses and fast women – and squander the rest – who were we to stop him? Do what you can get away with, right?
On the strength of the evidence, I can’t help but think tennis’ human headline Nick Kyrgios has suffered from a bit of “Be-a-dick” entitlement syndrome during in his turbulent career.
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So much precocious talent, so compelling to watch, at a time when Australia’s tennis talent cupboard was next to bare. And remember, Nick didn’t even like tennis – he much preferred basketball. So…”If I want to be a dick on the court, I’m going to be a dick. Who else are the fans going to watch – Bernie? Pfffttt.”
But roll forward to the summer of 2020, and we’ve now got quite a different Nick Kyrgios, bouncing the ball at the end of the court.
We’ve got bushfire-fundraiser Nick (clap, clap, clap), we’ve got respectful Nick, devoted team-man Nick, fun loving Nick, passionate Nick, joke around with Karl-Nick, and my favourite of all, intensely determined Nick. The Nick who chases down every ball, busts his gut on every single point, whether it’s 0-40, 1–5 down in the third, or set point.
All the talk of course is that he’s now turned the corner. No more “entitled to be a dick- Nick”, instead, he’s reformed Nick. Ambassadorial Nick, the new bastion of all things virtuous on the court.
Is it true? Is it real? Is it fair?
Who knows, but that’s what the mainstream media would have us believe. That’s the way the modern world works,
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We no longer have dry spells and heavy rain, we have catastrophic droughts and unprecedented weather events. In business, we have “complete and utter lightweights who need to be sacked, now”. Or we have ruthless, feared powerbrokers, taking the world by storm. Nobody’s just doing their job.
What we can admire is the effort Nick is clearly making, the determination and discipline he’s showing to keep himself “on track”. He’s clearly growing up, like all we all do at some stage. He’s getting better at coping with pressure and expectation, and masking the reality that tennis to him is still just a job.
But a completely different person?
Without wanting to rip the ears off Bambi, let’s just take it slowly shall we?
Let’s see how Nick fares when he’s playing in the second round of some two bit ATP tournament in Guangzhou, China in front of 315 people. When the crowd is anonymous, when the ball isn’t bouncing his way and the umpire is giving him the SH-one-tees.
Let’s see how he goes when his probation period is over.
Did we choose to forget? Nick’s still in the naughty corner, on account of his on-going “aggravated patterns of behaviour” in the back half of last year.
These cautionary tales in no way detract from the enormous progress that Nick Kyrgios has made over the summer. He’s to be widely applauded.
But in the context of his everlasting legacy, he’s still playing the first set.
And I still get the sense that Nick’s main game is not proving himself to anybody, other than himself.
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