{"id":401112,"date":"2026-01-09T03:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401112\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T03:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:25:08","slug":"nick-kyrgios-not-seeking-australian-open-wildcard-saying-he-is-not-quite-ready-for-grand-slam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/401112\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Kyrgios not seeking Australian Open wildcard, saying he is ‘not quite ready’ for grand slam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Kyrgios has conceded he is not up to playing singles at the Australian Open, ruling himself out of a likely wildcard.<\/p>\n

The local crowd-puller was tipped to receive one of the three remaining wildcards from Tennis Australia.<\/p>\n

But he announced on social media on Friday he would only play doubles with great mate Thanasi Kokkinakis at Melbourne Park, with the tournament getting underway on January 18.<\/p>\n

Multiple wrist and knee surgeries have limited Kyrgios to just seven singles tour matches over the past three years, with his ranking plummeting to 670.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old’s most recent singles match lasted just 66 minutes \u2014 a 6-3, 6-4 loss to American Aleksandar Kovacevic at the Brisbane International earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Kyrgios, who reached the 2022 Wimbledon final, said his body was not yet ready for five-set tennis and wanted the wildcard to go to someone who could “make their moment count”.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Nick Kyrgios will still team up with Thanasi Kokkinakis for doubles at Melbourne Park. (AAP: Zain Mohammed)<\/p>\n

“After some good conversations with TA, I’ve made the call to focus on doubles for this year’s AO,” he wrote in an Instagram story.<\/p>\n

“I’m fit and back on court, but five-setters are a different beast, and I’m not quite ready to go the distance yet.<\/p>\n

“This tournament means everything to me, but I’d rather give my spot to someone who’s ready to make their moment count.<\/p>\n

“It’s all building blocks, and I’ll be back next year and pumped to compete.”<\/p>\n

Former champion Stan Wawrinka, aged 40, appears a near certainty to get one of the wildcards.<\/p>\n

Wawrinka had already announced this year would be his final season on tour, giving fans in Melbourne a chance to farewell the 2014 Australian Open winner.<\/p>\n

Wawrinka showed he has plenty of fight left in him with a gutsy three-set win over world number 27 Arthur Rinderknech at the United Cup last weekend.<\/p>\n

Jordan Thompson, whose injury-plagued 2025 campaign saw him drop to 113th in the world, and fellow Australian Chris O’Connell (114th) would also be deserved recipients.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Kyrgios has conceded he is not up to playing singles at the Australian Open, ruling himself out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,6571,963,85,747,106747,159412],"class_list":{"0":"post-401112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian-open","11":"tag-nick-kyrgios","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-tennis-australia","15":"tag-wildcard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}