Nick Kyrgios has shared about some of the negativity in the early years of his life. The Australian tennis star and UTS player recently opened up on his podcast ‘Good Trouble With Nick Kyrgios’, where UTS Founder and Chairman Patrick Mouratoglou was a guest.

Mouratoglou had revealed that when he was younger, he struggled to speak. Many of the influences around him as a child were negative, and this caused him to withdraw.

Interestingly, Kyrgios had experienced a similar thing growing up.

“In my life, all I can remember is negativity, to be honest,” Kyrgios revealed to Mouratoglou.

“I remember in the academy, I was the worst physical specimen we had. We did all of these tests, speed tests, jump tests, change of direction… It was horrible.”

“I was so embarrassed, sometimes I would fake stomach aches to not do test. I just didn’t want to do it.”

Responding to negativity

But for Kyrgios, rather than this negativity causing him to withdraw, he responded differently.

“I remember the coaches saying if you can’t do this, then you shouldn’t even try to be a tennis player,” Kyrgios explained. “Those are the only things I remember, these negative sort of things. They stick with you forever.

“But I guess, just winning sort of helps. I always used to tell them, like, ‘I’m winning, so it doesn’t matter what I’m doing in here.’”

The 29-year-old hopes to returning to his winning ways later this year, when he’ll take to the UTS court in New York for his belated debut in the competition.