Yet the 29-year-old, who has “no regrets” about his career, said he did all he could against Fearnley largely due to the electric support he felt from from the John Cain Arena audience:
Q. You talked a lot about the fans. How would you characterize your relationship with Australian fans? No player in this country can provoke them like you, as we saw today.
NICK KIRGIOS: Yeah, it was crazy. I know that early in my career I had a very love/hate relationship with the audiences here. I remember being booed off the court when I lost in five sets. Tried my nuts, lost in five sets. I remember being booed on that pitch.
Fast forward to the latter stages of my career. I went there, I would say 65% of my capacity. For them to see me really fight and still give me that energy, it meant a lot because I feel like I gave my life to tennis and I tried to give them a show every time I played. let’s go.
I know I didn’t do that tonight. There are special moments for me that I will not forget. Really, they were tagging me in stories beforehand, like we were waiting four or five hours to get in line. It was a big motivation for me tonight not to throw in the towel, but simply to shake my opponent’s hand after the first set.
There was no way my abs would improve. We knew it. I really enjoyed how the crowd energized me. I wanted to give them two and a half hours of tennis rather than a retreat. It’s bullshit.
The self-proclaimed greatest showman in the game will look to give an encore performance in an all-Australian doubles match with Kokkinakis as Team Special K take on compatriots James Duckworth and Aleksandar Vukic later this week.
