A shattered Nick Kyrgios has vowed to quickly bounce back from his Australian Open heartbreak, starting with surgery on the knee that dashed his hopes of a maiden grand slam.
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Kyrgios was forced out of his home slam on Monday as he has a cyst growing on his left meniscus that requires arthroscopy surgery.
It couldn't have come at a much worse time, given the 27-year-old's 2022 run to the Wimbledon final had him confident he could genuinely challenge at Melbourne Park.
"Trust me, my heart is broken," Kyrgios said on Twitter on Monday night.
"But I'm on the table Monday to get fixed, I'll be back!"
The Australian was responding to a tweet from Holger Rune's coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who had told Kyrgios: "you will be heavily missed."
The knee injury isn't a career-threatening setback but Kyrgios made the "sensible" decision to withdraw to avoid suffering long-term damage.
He earlier told reporters he was confident he could return to "full strength", citing close friend Thanasi Kokkinakis' past resilience amid a horror injury run.
"I guess I can draw some inspiration from someone like Thanasi who has had a bunch of injuries and has bounced back," he said.
In casting more light on his injury, Kyrgios more than justified his earlier decision to withdraw from Australia's United Cup team, and later the Adelaide International, to focus on getting his body right.
Kyrgios was then dealing with an ankle injury, with his knee flaring up later.
He took a thinly-veiled swipe at his critics in Monday's press conference.
"There's always outside noise, especially with me," Kyrgios said.
"Like 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."
He said his call to withdraw was a team decision.
"I have a close-knit team and we had a very good system going," he said.
"Last two grand slams I've played, I've made a final of Wimbledon and quarter-final 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."
Australian Associated Press
