"They marketed only three players and it's caught up with them" says Kyrgios on the state of tennis in 2022

The Australian Open has seen declining numbers this year and while it's pandemic related, for the most part, there is a lack of interest in tennis as well.

The sport has been heavily dominated by the big three (Djokovic, Federer and Nadal) in the past decade and tennis fans associate themselves mostly with those players. While the tour has many exciting players number don't lie and whenever some of the big three does not play, the attendance and viewership is dropping.

Nick Kyrgios was asked about that and he was quite blunt about it saying:

“I just think that tennis has done a really poor job with accepting personalities in the past. I think they have kind of really only marketed three players for the last decade and now it’s kind of caught up with them, so hence they have tried to push some of the Next Gen guys, which I think some of them are really exciting I really like the two young Canadians, I think can really do some special things in the sport."

Kyrgios also thinks that tennis, in general, will be fine once the crowd accepts some of the younger guys more. He believes there is a lot of potential coming up but he wants to see the game and organizations embrace different personalities more:

“But tennis has really struggled to embrace different personalities, like when people go about it differently. Like something about Thanasi when I watch him play singles it glues me to the TV, whether he’s losing or whether he’s winning, it’s just the way he goes about it. I think tennis needs to embrace that more.”