Rafa Nadal was one of the most admired and respected tennis players, and the world of tennis stood at his feet when he announced his retirement late last year, aged 38, burdened by a long history of injuries. However, not everyone liked the Spaniard that much, and one of them is one of tennis's most wayward players: Nick Kyrgios.
The Australian has been been one of the biggest scourges of Jannik Sinner since his doping sentence was announced, but the Italian is not the only player that Kyrgios can't stand. Apparently, he also hated Nadal, even for his manerisms: "I used to hate and despise him so much when I saw him walking around".
Kyrgios said all of that, and much more, in the podcast Nothing Major, as reported by Tennis 365. At least he used his hatred for something good: motivation. "He was one guy who always motivated me", he said, although Kyrgios only beat Nadal three times, while Nadal beat him six times.
"Everyone in our academies back home idolised him, they were like: 'he is such a hard worker, he's this and that'. I was like 'I can't stand this guy'. I wanted to show people you could just have fun and be chilled and beat people like that". Fair enough, different philosophies... although it appears that Kyrgios' irrational hatred also included his mannerisms, those little actions, almost rituales, that he made before serving. They "gave him the icks", apparently.