Australian Nick Kyrgios has revealed he was admitted to a psychiatric ward after contemplating suicide following a Wimbledon defeat to Rafael Nadal in 2019.
The often-controversial world number 25 said the second-round, four-set defeat to the Spaniard was the lowest point of his career.
“I was genuinely contemplating if I wanted to commit suicide,” Kyrgios, who wore a white sleeve on his right arm to hide tell-tale self-harm scars, told Netflix documentary Break Point.
“I lost at Wimbledon. I woke up and my dad was sitting on the bed, full-blown crying. That was the big wake-up call for me.
“I was like ‘OK, I can’t keep doing this’. I ended up in a psych ward in London to figure out my problems.
“I was drinking, abusing drugs, lost my relationship with my family, pushed all my close friends away.
“You could tell I was hurting. My whole arm was covered in scars. That’s why I actually got my arm sleeve. To cover it all.
“That pressure, having that all-eyes-on-you expectation, I couldn’t deal with it. I hated the kind of person I was.”
