As mentioned above, Wawrinka lost in the first round of the next Grand Slam tournament after his triumph at the 2014 Australian Open and a similar performance at Wimbledon in 2015, will raise big question marks over his ability to cope with the pressure of being at the top.
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Nick Kyrgios has admitted that he “didn’t want to be there” in his defeat to Stanislas Wawrinka at Queen’s after spending the last week struggling with an illness.
By contrast, top-seeded Andy Murray opened his bid to recapture the title he lost past year to Grigor Dimitrov with a comfortable 6-4, 7-5 win over Taiwanese qualifier Lu Yen-Hsun, and French Open victor Stan Wawrinka began his bid for a first grass court title by defeating Australian Nick Kyrgios 6-3, 6-4.
Kyrgios kept things short and sweet in press afterwards, admitting he had felt unwell for nearly a week: “I just felt uncomfortable the whole time, really. I’m obviously not feeling great”, he said.
“I nearly found it hard to get myself engaged and didn’t want to be there”.
“””(I’m going to) not think about tennis, turn off all tennis channels, delete my ATP app, and just not think about tennis for a week or so”.
Wawrinka will next face big-serving Kevin Anderson of South Africa in the second round of the Wimbledon tune-up event. I do not usually cough just because I can.
“I’m very happy with this, I still have two Wimbledon preparation weeks”, he said.
Kyrgios has already flown over a friend, while his father, Giorgos, will arrive next week as he attempts to get his head straight before Wimbledon. “Sometimes I’m not moving that well, but today it was a great match”.
He built on that breakthrough success by reaching the Australian Open quarter-finals earlier this year and also defeated Roger Federer in the Madrid Masters. It was my first grand slam and I did not know what was going to happen afterwards.
The 20-year-old, who announced his arrival on the world scene by dumping Rafael Nadal out of Wimbledon previous year, was unable to live with Wawrinka’s level at Queen’s however.
“Grass is the toughest surface for me, but I also know I can play my best tennis on it. I need to make small adjustments”.
“So I’m just saying he’s saying a lot of things, and I think it’s always interesting as a player to read what he’s saying and how his mind working”.
“He has a lot of ups and downs, especially on the grass, but he’s a really talented player”.
“I’ve been battling mentally a bit”.
“For sure, he’s the future of tennis, I’ve been trying to practice with him for months but he didn’t find the time for that, so the first time was this match, and he has big game, that’s for sure”.
“So it doesn’t really surprise me, because his interviews are always amusing”. “Then I was spending time with my family, with my daughter [at his house near Lausanne in Switzerland]”.
However, displaying the qualities that have many believing him to be the best of Australia’s next generation, Kokkinakis fought back to rip through the second set with back-to-back breaks of the experienced Frenchman.
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