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There was an Indian hand in Nick Kyrgios reaching the Wimbledon men's singles final last Sunday.
The Australian tennis player uses basketball for fun, preparation, fitness, meditation and self-discipline - and the sessions are organised by Mahesh Padmanabhan, the India-born basketball player and now coach in Australia.
"A month-and-a-half ago, I was playing basketball with some kids at home and I said to one of them, 'I think I'm going to have fun and maybe win Wimbledon,'" Kyrgios said after losing to Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final on Sunday.
"I'm here as a finalist. I didn't hit more than an hour a day."
Kyrgios, a fan of the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics, plays with a band of college and semi-professional basketball players regularly.
"He really wouldn't hold back. That's the culture we develop here when we play," Padmanabhan told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"He's not precious, he doesn't want special treatment. He really hates it.
"He is most proud of himself for being respected as a basketball player who might be good enough to be in that environment."
Kyrgios, 27, is a controversial player famous for his epic displays of ranting, racket-wrecking and trash-talking.
According to TennisHeals, Kyrgios has received more fines for his temperamental on-court behaviour than any other player in ATP history.
The world No. 40, who never reached the semi-final of a Grand Slam before last week, defeated world No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas in the earlier rounds, causing the biggest upset.
He gave huge credit to basketball for his deep run in the tournament.
The Australian sensation is pretty open about his love for the Boston Celtics, which lost the NBA Finals Series 4-2 to the Golden State Warriors last month.
He said basketball was also one of the biggest reasons he had the time of his life at Wimbledon.
"Basketball is my meditation but at the same time, it's good fitness.
"People don't realise that defensive slides and movements of basketball are almost identical to the way people move on a tennis court."
Tsitsipas did not take his third-round loss to Kyrgios well, complaining that the polarising Australian star was "evil" and a bully.
Kyrgios laughed at the idea, slamming Tsitsipas as "soft".
Chol Adup, who plays in the second division of Australian basketball and regularly plays with Kyrgios, told The Age: "Kyrgios is really good at basketball. He and I fight all the time.
"If people were to see what we do on campus, they would be shocked. Nick is not the bully. I'm the bully."
Indo-Asian News Service
