Todd Woodbridge: 'Nick Kyrgios was under a lot of pressure in the past'
The Australian players have been on the constant rise so far in 2019, with Alex de Minaur and Nick Kyrgios winning ATP titles and Jordan Thompson who has achieved a career-high ranking in the past few months. On the other side, Ashleigh Barty is one of the most successful players on the WTA Tour in 2019, playing in the final in Sydney, the quarter-final at the Australian Open and advancing into the semi-final in Miami to crack the top-10 for the first time next Monday. Also, Barty has become the only player in the elite group in both singles and doubles, a true testimony of her skills and abilities. The Australian legend Todd Woodbridge is delighted with the way the Aussies have performed in the first three months of the new season, praising the efforts of them all and feeling confident about the rest of the season.
“Where one player can start to do well, and other players can hang on the coat-tails and go with them, it just creates a real positivity,” said Woodbridge. “It permeates through the whole playing group, and it permeates through the results in a tournament. There’s healthy competitiveness of not wanting to let them (your countrymen) get in front of you, and you’re going to go with them. That, of course, is what’s helped us get more players back into the top 100 and now we’re starting to edge them all into the 50s. In Ash’s case, it’s the top-10. We’ve turned the corner since then (Wimbledon 2017), and we’ve had a group of players like Jordan Thompson, Alex de Minaur – who’s shown players in his age bracket, like Alexei Popyrin, what is possible – and Ash Barty come through.
For me, Barty has been the constant over the last 12 months, and I think she’s led the way in what her peer group of Australians see is possible. On the ATP Tour, Jordan Thompson had to learn to cope with that extra intensity, better ball striking and facing players who, if you drop the ball short, will put you away. He’s known that, and he’s had to fight himself to take it on more. The fact he’s beaten the players he has in Miami, he’s now saying: I belong in this space. And he’s probably gotten used to the intensity of the level required a week in, week out.
And that’s important. Kyrgios got this ability now to be able to find a space to be able to go away, regroup, recharge. A couple of years ago, he didn’t have that – he was the great hope of Australian tennis and there was a lot of pressure on him. What these tournaments like Miami now do is dilute that pressure, because more players are getting a headline out of the event. And that’s a healthy thing for all of Australian tennis.”
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2TIXpdw
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