Celtics
Kyrgios has been a big Celtics fan ever since he was a kid in Australia.
Nick Kyrgios had a major breakthrough this summer, reaching a Grand Slam final for the first time in his career before losing to Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final.
That might not have been the Australian’s most painful loss of the summer though. Kyrgios is a diehard Celtics fan, constantly wearing the team’s memorabilia to his matches. Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim asked Kyrgios earlier this summer if his Celtics fandom “had any carryover to his tennis.”
“I’ve literally thrown tennis matches if they’ve lost in like, double overtime,” Kyrgios told Wertheim after laughing for a moment. “If someone plays me and they know the Celtics have lost, that’s [their] chance. That is for sure your best chance [to beat me], to play me on that day.”
Kyrgios didn’t provide an example of a time where he might have thrown a match following a bad Celtics loss. However, in an article for the Players’ Tribune in 2016, he wrote how he stayed up until 4 a.m. to watch a Celtics first-round playoff win over the Hawks.
“The Celts fought back to force overtime in [Game 4], and I was pacing around the room like a madman,” Kyrgios wrote. “I think O.T. started at like 3 a.m. I’m trying not to scream during every possession, so I’m doing that thing where you just whisper to yourself like a crazy person.
“Whispering, like: ‘Set the pick.… Come on, mate. Set the pick!’”
Kyrgios also shared that because he’s an overseas Celtics fan, a good internet connection is “a legit top-five priority in my life.” One of the times he didn’t have good internet to watch the Celtics came during a painful loss.
“You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to stream an NBA playoff game on your phone in China. Crazy day, that,” Kyrgios wrote. “This was back when the Celtics lost to the Heat in the 2012 Eastern Conference finals. The internet wasn’t great. The picture was going in and out. I was losing the plot. It’s one thing to watch your team lose, it’s another level of pain when you’re watching them lose on a dodgy stream.
“Brutal.”
In the same article, Kyrgios wrote that he became a Celtics fan while playing the video game NBA Live in 2006, choosing to play with the team because he thought their logo “looked cool.” While Boston wasn’t a good team at the time, Kyrgios wrote he “fell in love” with Paul Pierce and the day the Celtics traded for Kevin Garnett “might have been the happiest day of my life.”
Kyrgios constantly tweets about the Celtics, too, mentioning them in his Twitter bio. He recently gave his take on the Kevin Durant trade rumors.
“No,” Kyrgios said when asked if he’d like to see the Celtics trade Jaylen Brown for Durant. “I love Jaylen Brown. I love [Jayson] Tatum. I love the whole team. I hope it doesn’t change. I understand the Celtics are a win-now franchise, but I think Jaylen Brown’s too valuable to give up. I think he’s one of the best two-way players, two-way forwards in the league. So, I hope not.”
Kyrgios holds the 23rd seed in the US Open, which begins Monday. He faces fellow Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis in the first round.
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