Nick Kyrgios bares his soul at Wimbledon: ‘Little bit soft’

At one point, a flailing swing of the Kyrgios racquet to try to send back a lob, succeeded only hammering the ball straight out of Centre Court – no mean feat in a stadium of that size.

“Finally won a set against him in a grand slam”. Vandeweghe, a 2015 quarterfinalist at the All England Club, had lost serve only twice in the first three rounds this year.

Kyrgios put up a fight in the first set but fell away to lose 7-5, 6-1, 6-4 to a rampaging Murray on centre court before making extraordinary comments about his commitment to the sport in his post-match press conference.

For much of Monday’s first set on a packed Centre Court, Murray played second fiddle to 15th seed Kyrgios, who thudded down serves at close to 140 miles per hour that the world number two struggled to reach let alone control.

The first set was a blockbuster with both men on top of their games right from the start.

Fellow Aussie Pat Cash said: “When the going gets tough, Nick Kyrgios tends to go shopping”.

Murray again stood up for Kyrgios following more negative headlines after he earned a code violation during his second-round win over Dustin Brown and was then involved in a tense exchange with reporters. He came on exceptionally well, he got in his head and he got Kyrgios to quit at times, ‘ he said.

Describing Monday’s win as “very good”, the Briton said his only focus was on his next match, a quarter-final against French 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. “If he plays well and I’m not on my game, I can lose that match”.

Murray has been following Wales’ progress to the semi-finals in France, and will hope to finish his quarter-final on Wednesday in time to watch some of their match against Portugal. “If I played as focused and as solid as I did today, I have a chance”.

McEnroe urged the coachless Kyrgios to appoint a fulltime mentor to help the 21-year-old fulfil his “God-given talents” before his career slipped away.

The former world No.8 was saddened by comments from Kyrgios after the match in which he said he was “too soft” to win a grand slam and “doesn’t love tennis”. One week I’m pretty motivated to train and play. “He took it from me”, Tomic said.

‘One week I’ll just not do anything. “I don’t really know”.

He said: “I’m also very confident on my capacity to play great tennis and beat players like Andy”. “But I don’t know what else to do without it”.

‘To be honest, I woke up this morning and played computer games, ‘ he said. Is that the greatest preparation? I feel like I know what to do but it’s hard to actually go out there and execute against such a player like him.

“Everything can happen in tennis”, said Tsonga, when asked about the prospect of facing the Scot.

“When I see Roger, everyone sort of just looks at Roger”.