{"id":866677,"date":"2026-08-21T22:10:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T22:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866677\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T22:10:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T22:10:45","slug":"suspended-tennis-star-nick-kyrgios-takes-a-shot-at-redemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/866677\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspended tennis star Nick Kyrgios takes a shot at redemption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Nick Kyrgios was back in the news this week after the Australian tennis player tested positive for cocaine.PATRICK HAMILTON\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The first thought you had when you heard that former Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios had tested positive for cocaine<\/a> was probably, \u201cPeople still do cocaine?\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought coke went out of fashion around the same time that using it killed a few people. But I guess some guys won\u2019t believe a thing is true until it happens to them. <\/p>\n

Kyrgios hasn\u2019t bothered denying it, which is a nice change. None of this \u201cI was making myself a Tang and, you know, I thought it tasted funny\u201d business that everyone else tries to pull off. <\/p>\n

Perhaps sensing that no one anywhere was going to believe him, Kyrgios instead issued a statement of apology: \u201cI\u2019m sorry to my fans, my family, my sponsors and everyone close to me. Above all, I\u2019m sorry to the kids who follow me. I know the example this sets and I\u2019m deeply disappointed in myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forget for a second the doubtful idea that kids are looking to Nick Kyrgios for moral guidance. Why would anyone under the age of majority think about him at all? Tennis-wise, he hasn\u2019t done anything in years. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not entirely his fault. Blame the replacement of human on-court officials with disembodied AI voices. Now there\u2019s no one out there for Kyrgios to reduce to tears. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s suspended for now. He\u2019ll soon find out for how long (probably a few months). In the interim, Kyrgios said, \u201cI\u2019ll do the work and come back better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Kyrgios is 31, but it\u2019s an old 31. Once ranked 13th in the world, he\u2019s down to 919th. Whatever remains of his celebrity rests entirely on his past reputation as a wild man. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like anyone thinks he cheated, or would care much if he had. Coke doesn\u2019t make you better at tennis. It makes you better at deciding to paint your kitchen at 3 in the morning. <\/p>\n

If anything, this sort of career-debilitating choice fits in with Kyrgios\u2019s public image. At the very least, he is back in the news. Looking slightly past that, you can see the real goal here: redemption. He\u2019ll \u201ccome back better.\u201d <\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: The part-time professional athlete is here, and you can\u2019t get enough of them<\/a><\/p>\n

Redemption is something most of us try to avoid having need of in our professional lives. Sure, as a teenager, I was ignominiously fired from Ontario Place. Have I been redeemed on that score? Since I told my mother I\u2019d been laid off, midday in midsummer, which she didn\u2019t buy, which then forced me to go out and get another, even worse job, probably not. There was a lesson in that and I learned it \u2013 the next time you get fired, don\u2019t tell your mom. <\/p>\n

It is neither normal nor desirable to look forward to having your life upended by the public revelation of some miserable failure. Like other sensible people, I prefer to fail miserably in private. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The former Wimbledon finalist, who was once ranked 13th in the world, now sits at 919th.Alastair Grant\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

But not celebrities. Not any more. Screw-ups aren\u2019t screw-ups. They\u2019re medium-term opportunities to reintroduce themselves to the audience. In Hollywood, it\u2019s discovering the person you were always meant to be, after your fourth DUI. In sports, it\u2019s realizing you\u2019re good enough as you are, after your appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport is rejected. It\u2019s the last thing you\u2019ve got left once everyone has grown tired of you. <\/p>\n

Unlike a famous performer, athletes seeking redemption don\u2019t need to reconvince a whole lot of people to buy whatever junk they\u2019re selling \u2013 a movie, a song, whatever. Sports junk is presold. <\/p>\n

All the pro has to do is show up, sound contrite and win a couple. Journalists will do the rest. If you\u2019re muddling down there around 900th in the world, it must look like a good deal.<\/p>\n

Drug busts are the most reliable pathway to sports redemption, along with public implosions. Petty crimes work. Violence is a high-risk manoeuvre, but if you can manage it correctly, it gets you a lot of media mentions. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re famous enough, you can pull this trick again and again \u2013 which is to say, you are never actually redeemed. How many times has Tiger Woods \u2013 who, last we heard, was back in rehab<\/a> \u2013 been rehabilitated? A half-dozen? <\/p>\n

When he returns this time, Woods will still be the golfer most people want to watch and hear from. Maybe that\u2019s part of the problem. <\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: Tiger Woods\u2019s never-ending shadow will smother golf until he leaves the game<\/a><\/p>\n

Redemption is such a can\u2019t-miss PR tool that the bar to reach it keeps getting lower. It used to be you had to have a genuine fall. Now it\u2019s as basic as being good at something, becoming temporarily less good at it and then recognizably good again.<\/p>\n

After a couple of mediocre years toward the end, Roger Federer was redeemed by his final Wimbledon victory. But redeemed from what? Excellence nearing perfection?<\/p>\n

Kyrgios has already been redeemed a few times. You\u2019ll recall his many failures of on-court comportment, and the time he put his hands on his then-girlfriend (he pleaded guilty, but no conviction was recorded). In between, he\u2019s said some pretty out-there things \u2013 things someone at your office would not get away with. But he\u2019s learned from them, or something. <\/p>\n

All of this was forgiven because Kyrgios was both winning in the sense of his personality as well as on the court. People like a mad genius. You just have to be careful to take care of the genius part.<\/p>\n

Now that Kyrgios is no longer much good at tennis, but still a screw-up, people have gotten tired. If a pro can\u2019t close the gap between a dumb mistake and subsequent high performance, they\u2019re done. This is the territory where Kyrgios now finds himself.<\/p>\n

He will still be able to work for as long as his name is familiar. But, some day soon, a random tennis-obsessed 14-year-old in the stands at a tournament in Munich or S\u00e3o Paulo will turn to his mom as Kyrgios takes the court and say, \u201cWho is that guy?\u201d <\/p>\n

That\u2019s when no promise to be better \u2013 even a genuine one \u2013 can save him. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Nick Kyrgios was back in the news this week after the Australian tennis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,2922,82,593,8023],"class_list":["post-866677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-noastack","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-topstory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}