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| "On guard!" |
Earlier this week, with the help of Mike Pielluci,
an article I wrote on Nick Kyrgios appeared at The Classical. His summer malaise was the subject, mostly, but at
the heart of my interest in the supposed future of Australian tennis was the
question of youthfulness set adrift. After all, if summer is a young season,
the conflicts that wrestle within its rugged months are caught between serious
play and an active form of resting. I watch Kyrgios and he is either stretched
taut on a rack or cocooned in the fetal position. And, in turn, I can never
decide whether to root for or against him. Mostly, though, I watch him rushing
and shuffling as if to do nothing and I think how the athletic body and the
young mind are bound together in a counterproductive push and pull. If I had
known then, what I know now.