Kyrgios Faces Career End After Cocaine Test at Mallorca
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- Nick Kyrgios tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine at the Mallorca Open in June while attempting a comeback from knee and wrist injuries, triggering a mandatory provisional suspension that keeps him off court until his case is resolved.
- Kyrgios faces a potential ban of up to four years, though the suspension would be capped at three months if he can prove the drug was taken out of competition.
- The Australian, now world number 919, has played only eight tournaments and won two matches since the start of 2023, and acknowledged in a social media post that coming to terms with the end of his career has been harder than he imagined.
- Kyrgios has a documented history of disciplinary trouble: a suspended 28-day ban in 2015 for lewd remarks about Stan Wawrinka's girlfriend, an eight-week ban in 2016 at the Shanghai Masters, a default in 2019 at the Italian Open for hurling a chair, and a $113,000 fine for verbally abusing umpire Fergus Murphy.
- Kyrgios described 2019 as the "lowest point of my career" in Netflix's Break Point documentary, detailing drinking, drug abuse, self-harming and a stint in a London psychiatric hospital.
- Kyrgios has been a vocal critic of tennis' anti-doping system, branding it "awful" after Jannik Sinner accepted a three-month ban for clostebol and Iga Swiatek received a similarly lenient sanction in their own cases.
- Kyrgios admitted in 2023 to pushing ex-girlfriend Chiara Passari on the pavement during a row in Canberra, though a magistrate spared him a criminal record, and has publicly distanced himself from controversial influencer Andrew Tate.
Why it matters: Kyrgios is the same player who called tennis' anti-doping system "awful" when defending Sinner and Swiatek — and now sits on the receiving end of it, with a three-month-to-four-year ban determining whether a career that included a Wimbledon final in 2022 ends in quiet legal limbo or formal suspension.
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