Still, the 29-year-old, who has “no regreats” about his career, said he did all he could against Fearnley in large part thanks to the electric support he felt from the John Cain Arena crowd:
Q. You’ve spoken a lot about the fans. How would you characterize your relationship with the Aussie fans? No player in this country who can whip them up into a frenzy like you can, as we saw today.
NICK KYRGIOS: Yeah, it was crazy. Like, I know towards the start of my career I had a very love/hate relationship with the crowd here. I remember getting booed off that court when I lost in five sets. I tried my nuts off, lost in five sets. I remember getting booed off that court.
Fast forward to the later stages of my career. I went out there, I would say 65% of my capacity. For them to really see me fighting and still giving me that energy, it meant a lot, because I feel like I’ve given my life to tennis and I’ve tried to give them a show every time I go out there.
I know I didn’t do that tonight. There are moments for me that are special that I won’t forget. Really, they were tagging me in stories beforehand, like we waited four or five hours to line up. That was a big motivation for me tonight to not throw the towel in, just shake my opponent’s hand after the first set.
There was no way my abdominal was going to get better. We knew that. I really enjoyed the way the crowd gave me energy. I wanted to give them two-and-a-half hours of tennis rather than a retirement. That’s shit.
The game’s self-proclaimed greatest showman will look to give an encore performance in an all-Aussie doubles match with Kokkinakis as the Special K squad takes on compatriots James Duckworth and Aleksandar Vukic later this week.
