"My mental struggles were 20 times more serious than Osaka's" says Nick Kyrgios

Nick Kyrgios spoke candidly about his career ahead of the Citi Open in Washington where he touched upon his own mental health.

Kyrgios is one of the most polarizing players on the tour. His popularity in the game is rivalled by few in the world of tennis which is something Kyrgios confirmed as well. Speaking on his career he said:

“I only played five tournaments in two years, but if you look on social media there are accounts that post about me every two weeks. If I'm so bad at the sport, why am I being promoted so much?"

It wasn't all flowers for Kyrgios early as he spoke about getting a lot of hate as well which made him stronger mentally:

"Deep down I know I'm great at sports, personalities like that are needed, although early in my career I received a lot of hate, racism and other nonsense from some fans, it made me stronger mentally."

Kyrgios compared his situation to that of Naomi Osaka who brought mental health back into media focus with her own struggles. He said:

"Something similar to Naomi Osaka happened to me, now that it is fashionable to talk about mental health, but in my opinion mine was 20 times more serious. They usually have good press, they do not receive hate messages or historical fines. This sport was about to take me to a dark side, which happened for a while, mentally it was very hard at only 18 years old."

However, he also confirmed that he gotten to terms with it knowing tennis has somewhat accepted him by now.

"I was one of the best-known players in Australia and one of the most criticized by the media. Now I am 26 years old, I am old enough to know that everything is shit, tennis had a hard time embracing a personality like mine."