AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 16, 2023

Nick Kyrgios

Will Maher

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Hello, everyone. Unfortunately we have some bad news. Nick has to pull out of the Australian Open. He will explain why, and we also have his physio here with him that can answer more specific questions about the injury. Nick, if you want to say something first up.

NICK KYRGIOS: Yeah, obviously extremely disappointed. You know, I know you guys will all be wondering what's going on, so my physio Will here has been with me throughout my career and he's been monitoring me pretty closely throughout the last week and he's going to give you more of the details on what's going on. Honestly, I'm just exhausted from everything, and obviously pretty brutal. One of the most important tournaments of my career. It hasn't been easy at all.

WILL MAHER: Yeah, it has been a pretty interrupted and difficult lead-in into the Australian Open. Unfortunately, during the last week or so Nick has experienced some discomfort in his knee, routine MRI just to make sure everything was okay.

There's a parameniscal cyst growing in his left meniscus, which is the result of a small tear in his lateral meniscus. It's not a significant injury in the sense that it's going to be career threatening or anything like that. Even at that stage it was still worth persevering to see if we could do anything to get him back on court.

To Nick's credit, he did try everything, to the point even last week he was having a procedure called a fenestration and drainage where they use a syringe to try and drain the cyst, which Nick has some pretty gruesome photos of. I'm sure he'll probably share them later.

Any amount of injections that he could try to get into his knee without causing long-term damage. We came to Melbourne with the hope there might be some pressure relieved from that procedure and he'd have some relief and be able to get up to a level he was comfortable to compete.

We used the match, the charity event against Novak, as a gauge to see if he could compete at that highest level. He didn't pull up great, and he still tried to give himself every chance in the following days to have subsequent training. But it was clear that with each passing session that he was getting sorer and sorer.

I think we've made the sensible decision to withdraw him because at this stage he wants to feel mentally comfortable that he can go seven matches, he can go the distance, and needs to be able to do potentially seven three-hour matches. Getting on the court simply wasn't enough for him.

The situation now is, which we wanted to prevent him from having further injury or making that injury worse. So now he'll go back to Canberra at the end of the week, he'll have an arthroscopic procedure to clean up his lateral meniscus and remove the paralabral cyst.

From there it's a relatively straightforward recovery through February for him, and very realistic to be back on the court for Indian Wells. It won't interrupt his year tremendously, despite the fact it's a great disappointment to withdraw from the Australian Open, home slam.

The prognosis is good and he'll be fine. We just go back to work and make sure everything is fine for him and we go again.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How are you at the moment, Nick?

NICK KYRGIOS: Yeah, obviously mixture of emotions. You know, I guess after the US -- it always goes back to the last Grand Slam I played was the US Open, and obviously extremely hard. I was extremely hard on myself after that loss in the quarterfinals. Obviously thinking that I could win it from there on, and obviously just had Oz Open was on the back of my mind from that day forth as soon as I got off the court against Khachanov. I always wanted to just do everything right and train right and tick every box, and just be ready for the Oz Open.

Obviously this coming around is just bad timing. But that's life. Injury is a part of the sport. I guess I can draw some inspiration from someone like Thanasi who has had a bunch of injuries and has bounced back.

Look, I'm not doubting I will be back to my full strength and playing the tennis I was playing prior to this event. Yeah, I'm devastated obviously. It's like my home tournament. I've had some great memories here. Obviously last year winning the title in doubles and playing the best tennis of my life probably. Then going into this event as one of the favorites, it's brutal.

All I can do now is just look forward, do what I need to do and come back.

Q. Nick, to you, what does it feel like when you're playing? Is it just pain? Is it restricted movement? To your physio, if Nick had continued to play, would there have been long-term damage?

NICK KYRGIOS: I guess you can make everything worse.

WILL MAHER: You tell him how it feels, I'll...

NICK KYRGIOS: It doesn't feel good. It's like constant. When I finish a session or finish a match, it's just constant throbbing. Barely had a good night's sleep the last four, five nights. It's just been throbbing. It's an impact, so every time I land on serve or push off my serve, you can see on the side of my knee there's like a little lump. That lump will eventually just get bigger and bigger. There's pressure on my knee, obviously hinders my movement.

Yeah, the only real way to get rid of it is to open up and then just get rid of it.

WILL MAHER: In terms of making it worse, it absolutely could get worse. The very small tear he has on his meniscus could turn into a much more complicated one, and he would end up losing a large chunk of his meniscus, which would affect his long-term prognosis.

Then playing with pain and compensation is always a problem. You have to play at the highest level with some sort of pain at times. It's not possible to compete all the time at 100% fitness. When you have significant pain and it alters how your muscles work, you can definitely cause problems. Particularly around the back of the knee, if your hamstrings aren't firing, my concern would be is that he could tear his ACL or do something that would be career altering. To lose a Grand Slam is a step backwards but to make sure he doesn't do something more significant is far more sensible.

Q. (Question about a Baker's cyst.)

WILL MAHER: A Baker's cyst is something that goes out the back of the knee. This is going more out the side of the knee. It's a parameniscal cyst, and it's sort of right in the way when he bends his knee. A Baker's cyst is more out the back. It's very similar.

Q. Is it caused by anything in particular?

WILL MAHER: It's the tearing of the meniscus, which opens up the hole which then the fluid can extrude into.

Q. Nick, did you wait as long as you could just to see if there was any chance you can...

NICK KYRGIOS: Definitely. I got off the court yesterday and was dealing with it, and we were going to make a call then. I was, like, you know, I've worked so hard, put myself in the position to be -- you know, I was ranked outside 100 a year ago. Now I've had the year I had last year and back inside the 20, being seeded at a Grand Slam, feeling as good as I'm feeling and playing the way I'm feeling.

Yeah, I wanted to give myself a chance. I had some hope. But, you know, after today, I hit with Thanasi, someone who's playing the way he's playing, and he pushed me around the court a little bit. That was more of a realistic type, a hit of the intensity that was coming. It was easier to make the call today.

Q. You mentioned the other day about the stresses involved in building towards this Grand Slam in particular. Was it extra stressful knowing that you had issues with your knee and trying to get ready?

NICK KYRGIOS: Yeah, definitely. There's always outside noise, especially with me, like, you know, seeing people, past players saying, He's doing his own thing. Like, I'm dealing with my problems. And this was something that I was just dealing with as well as managing expectation, trying to get my body right, trying to feel good about my game.

There were just so many things that I was dealing with. You know, I have a close-knit team and we had a very good system going. Last two Grand Slams I've played, I've made a final of Wimbledon and quarterfinal at the US Open. We felt we had a genuine chance of winning an event, winning a Grand Slam and answering the questions.

Yeah, we were dealing with a lot, but we have a good system in place and we came to this decision together. It was mainly driven by me, but I have their support and we feel like we're making the right decision. But players have no idea what I deal with, that's for sure.

Q. Will, when you touch on the fact the cyst came back because of the tear, when did it happen? What caused it? How long have you known about it?

WILL MAHER: It's impossible to say exactly when it happened. All we can go off is when Nick started to feel symptoms. Certainly in the last fortnight he started to describe discomfort in his knee. If it's not something that responds to treatment, particularly in an athlete of his level, you don't leave it for very long.

Hence the MRI and finding the cyst. Those things can exist for some time and be quite happily not a problem. But it's when they start to become bigger that they become a problem. That's what was happening in this situation. They got quite bigger. Hence that's why they tried to drain it.

It's only in the last fortnight it's become a problem.