Nick Kyrgios seeks assault dismissal due to mental health: reports

• Tennis player Nick Kyrgios will seek to have the assault case dismissed on mental health grounds.
• Australian was charged with common assault in an Australian magistrates’ court.
• The 27-year-old is competing at the Japan Open in Tokyo for the first time since the US Open.

Australian media reported on Tuesday that tennis player Nick Kyrgios will seek to have an assault case against him dismissed on mental health grounds.

Kyrgios’s attorney represented him at a hearing in the Australian Capital Territory magistrates court, where he was charged with common assault.

The 27-year-old Australian player is in Tokyo to compete in the Japan Open. He was not obligated to appear for the administrative hearing.

His attorney, Michael Kukulies-Smith, reportedly requested a postponement so that a mental health evaluation could be conducted, as reported by the ABC and the Sydney Morning Herald.

They claimed that Kukulies-Smith stated that his client’s mental health difficulties were well-known and that he will seek dismissal of the allegation at a later date.

The Wimbledon finalist said he battled depression in an Instagram post from earlier this year in which he discussed his previous mental health difficulties.

“I felt as if I couldn’t talk or trust anyone,” he wrote with a 2019 photo of himself.

“I’ve been through those times when it seemed as if those positive energetic vibes were never ever going to be reality.”

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‘Do my job’

The number 20 player in the world is competing in his first competition since falling in the quarterfinals of the US Open a month ago.

Earlier on Monday, he stated that he had been working on the case “for months” and was taking it “day by day.”

Kyrgios, one of the most divisive figures in tennis, told reporters in Tokyo, “There’s only so much I can control and I’m taking all the steps and dealing with that off the court.”

“I can only do what I can and I’m here in Tokyo and just trying to play some good tennis, continue that momentum and just try to do my job — and that’s play tennis, play it well. That’s it.”

He is a clear favorite to win his first-round match against the 87th-ranked Tseng Chun-hsin of Taiwan.

In 2014, at the age of 19, Kyrgios rose to prominence at Wimbledon by defeating Rafael Nadal en route to the tournament’s quarterfinals.

Kyrgios has enjoyed a string of solid results in recent events, despite his inability to realize his early promise in subsequent years.

In January 2022, he and Thanasi Kokkinakis won the Australian Open men’s doubles title before losing the Wimbledon final against Novak Djokovic in July.

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