Nick Kyrgios marches to the beat of his own drum.
So, when someone plays music in the middle of his tennis match, he does not like it in the slightest.
That little irritation from a member in the crowd went some way to derailing Kyrgios’s 2016 Australian Open men’s singles campaign.
It affected his first two sets before he roared back to blitz the third and had a great chance to claim the fourth.
Irreparable damage had been done in the preceding two sets and Kyrgios went down 6-4 6-3 1-6 6-4 to the cool-as-ice Tomas Berdych in a third round firecracker at Rod Laver Arena on Friday night.
Conversely, Berdych took no notice of the music, nor was he upset by the circus going on at the other end of the court.
The Czech Republic star showed the difference between an upstart and a seasoned pro.
The sixth seed was almost robotic in the way he approached the first two sets.
So level headed, Berdych is never too high and never too low after a point, which can borderline on the boring, but demonstrates a mental toughness required to succeed in the big tournaments.
Berdych blocked out the noise and delivered knock-out blows off his racquet to all areas of the court, with nice deep shots from both sides of the body that had Kyrgios at sixes and sevens.
To his credit, Kyrgios showed Lleyton Hewitt-like qualities to fight back in the third and fourth sets, but his unwillingness to let go of his frustration at the music from the crowd – among other things – earlier in the match proved fatal to his campaign.
It was still bubbling away in Kyrgios’s mind in the post match press conference.
“Unless I’m hearing things,” he said. “Yeah, I thought there was music playing. Did anyone else hear it?”
It is easy to forget that Kyrgios is just 20 years of age.
He will learn from this experience and could do worse than watch re-runs of this match in full.
It demonstrated his good and bad in one neat package.
The final two sets was Kyrgios at his breathtaking best, both tennis wise and with his bubbly personality.
Kyrgios might have lost a few fans in the first 75 minutes with his continual jousting with the crowd and the chair umpire, but, somehow, he re-grouped after the second set, winning six of the next seven games to have a fighting chance.
The jeers turned into cheers with Kyrgios harnessing the crowd for the good instead of forcing them against him.
Kyrgios fed off their energy, delivering some mesmerising strokes that will tempt fans back into his corner.
A number of Kyrgios’s cross court forehands will figure in the hot shots of the tournament.
It is just a pity we will not get to see them again – unless of course the doubles tickles your fancy.
Kyrgios later said he felt like he “let a lot of people down” by not going deeper in the tournament.
Truth is, he let himself down by mentally checking into the game 120 minutes late, because he could have been toasting a famous victory, instead he is wondering what might have been.
