Nick Kyrgios
Nick Kyrgios will often tell you that he is the main event at any tournament he plays, and never was that assertion more correct than in 2022.
Irritated as I was to see Aryna Sabalenka excluded from our editorial Top 5, I don’t know how one even begins to tell the story of this past season without repeated mentions of Nick’s name: from his Australian Open doubles revival with Thanasi Kokkinakis, to his three-set epic against Rafael Nadal at the BNP Paribas Open, to his unforgettable Wimbledon fortnight.
Nick Kyrgios is box office, and when he was at your stadium or on your TV screen, you tuned in— and not just for the antics and the one-liners. In 2022, Kyrgios put his tennis front and center: he wanted to remind his crew of haters—real or imagined—that what makes him interesting above all else is his ability to take the racquet out of almost any opponent’s hands.
Regardless of ranking, Kyrgios played up to extreme effect, notching major victories over Stefanos Tsitsipas at Wimbledon and world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev at the US Open en route to the finals and quarterfinals, respectively.
His run to a first Grand Slam final at SW19 consumed all aspects of the news cycle, from sports and to mental health to more unsavory updates regarding (as yet unsettled) domestic abuse allegations. But much as TIME’s Person of the Year is a neutral mantle, so too is TENNIS.com’s Top 5, and no Top 5 from 2022 would be complete without exhaustive explanation of Kyrgios’ significant contribution to the men’s game.
Perhaps this blurb, much like the Aussie’s own selective scheduling, will leave readers all the more amped to see what the now-No. 22—after starting the year ranked No. 93—will do next season. —David Kane