{"id":705,"date":"2025-07-07T13:04:57","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T13:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=705"},"modified":"2025-07-07T13:04:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T13:04:57","slug":"nick-kyrgios-reveals-wimbledon-dark-horse-i-honestly-wouldnt-count-him-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=705","title":{"rendered":"Nick Kyrgios reveals Wimbledon dark horse \u2013 \u2018I honestly wouldn\u2019t count him out\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Kyrgios admits it is difficult to look past a Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner final at Wimbledon, but he feels it would be silly to write off Taylor Fritz.<\/p>\n<p>Fifth seed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/taylor-fritz\">Fritz<\/a> has reached the quarter-final at the All England Club for a third time in his career and he has done it the hard way as he has come through a brutal draw.<\/p>\n<p>He faced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/9-fastest-men-recorded-tennis-serves-giovanni-mpetshi-perricards-wimbledon-record\">the big-serving Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard<\/a> in the first round and needed five sets to overcome the rising French star before also going the distance against up-and-coming Canadian Gabriel Diallo.<\/p>\n<p>The American then dropped one set against 26th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina before he finally had an easy day out in the fourth round as Jordan Thompson retired with a thigh injury after going down 6-1, 3-0.<\/p>\n<p>Fritz will look to reach the last four at Wimbledon for the first time in his career when he takes on Karen Khachanov and Kyrgios has been impressed with the 27-year-old so far at SW19.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way Taylor Fritz has been playing, it\u2019s probably one of the hardest draws a seed has had,\u201d he told talkSPORT.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s played three guys who are all very dangerous on grass. He\u2019s come through that and is saying his body feels better and better so I honestly wouldn\u2019t count him out. Fritz can do some damage against those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fritz has been one of the standout players on grass the past five years as he has recorded 35 wins \u2013 the most on the ATP Tour since 2020 \u2013 and he feels he is no longer a one-dimensional player thanks to tweaks.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the changes, Fritz replied: \u201cThe biggest tweak, like the thing that I experiment the most with is just return positioning and grips and stance on returning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhether I want to be holding a chip grasp and standing in close, and then the chip grip is just my backhand grip, so I don\u2019t have to switch grips or anything. If I want to take a step back, look to hit over, look to be switching grips, I guess, if we\u2019re serving the other way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve been able to just, like, I mean, from basically the first time I got on grass, before Stuttgart, the days leading up to the tournament, I just tried both, experimented, felt like this feels better. Just to see.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think maybe a couple years ago I was one-dimensional. I was pretty much only doing one or the other.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow I feel like I\u2019ve found a good balance of, like, what conditions need to be met in the match based off of what my opponent\u2019s doing off of it, how he\u2019s serving, how I\u2019m hitting the ball, to kind of decide which way I want to go about returning.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Wimbledon News<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-features\/wimbledon-champions-wear-nike-and-this-years-favourites-are-both-nike-athletes\">Wimbledon champions wear Nike \u2013 and this year\u2019s favourites are both Nike athletes<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/nick-kyrgios-denied-entry-into-wimbledon-grounds-in-security-confrontation\">Nick Kyrgios denied entry into Wimbledon grounds in security confrontation<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Of course, two-time defending champion Alcaraz and world No 1 Sinner are the men to beat with 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic also in the mix.<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic, though, will need to get past Sinner in the semis and Alcaraz in the final if he is to win a record-equalling eighth title.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNovak has at times looked incredible but the way Sinner and Alcaraz are playing and dialled in, it\u2019s pretty tough to go past those two guys,\u201d Kyrgios said.<\/p>\n<p>The Australian also feels Sinner is the man to beat as he added: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to look past Jannik Sinner. He looks really locked in and incredible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe hasn\u2019t lost more than four games in a single set. His form is concerning to the rest of the field. It\u2019s hard not to see an Alcaraz-Sinner final.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/wimbledon\/nick-kyrgios-names-one-player-he-wouldnt-count-out-at-wimbledon\">Nick Kyrgios reveals Wimbledon dark horse \u2013 \u2018I honestly wouldn\u2019t count him out\u2019<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/\">Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nick Kyrgios admits it is difficult to look past a Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner final at Wimbledon, but he feels it would be silly to write off Taylor Fritz. Fifth seed Fritz has reached the quarter-final at the All England Club for a third time in his career and he has done it the hard way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}