CANBERRA: Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios on Friday pleaded guilty to assaulting a former girlfriend, but avoided a conviction for what the magistrate called a “single act of stupidity”.<\/p>\n
Appearing in a Canberra court, the Wimbledon finalist admitted assaulting then-girlfriend Chiara Passari on January 10, 2021, by pushing her to the ground after a heated argument.
\nKyrgios said he was “not in a good place” at the time, and that he “reacted to a difficult situation in a way I deeply regret”.<\/p>\n
“I know it wasn’t OK and I’m sincerely sorry for the hurt I caused,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Passari lodged a complaint with police 10 months after the incident, after the pair had broken up, lawyers told the court.<\/p>\n
In a statement read to the court, Passari said she had been severely traumatised by the incident, experiencing severe weight loss, staying in bed day and night — unable to sleep or form new romantic relationships.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Kyrgios appealed to have the charge of one count of common assault dismissed on mental health grounds, arguing it was an isolated incident and out of character.<\/p>\n
Psychologist Sam Borenstein told the court Kyrgios suffered from recurring major depression, which included black periods, thoughts of self-harm, insomnia, agitation and feelings of guilt.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Beth Campbell heard that appeal but ultimately dismissed the case without conviction.<\/p>\n
Campbell said Kyrgios acted poorly but the offence was not planned or premeditated and was a “single act of stupidity” by a young man attempting to remove himself from a tense situation.<\/p>\n
The court was told Kyrgios shoved Passari, who was preventing him from leaving her Canberra apartment.<\/p>\n
“I do not record a conviction against your name, I do not find any necessity to place you on a good behaviour bond,” Campbell said.<\/p>\n
Squandered talents?
\nKyrgios had hobbled into court in Canberra with a pair of crutches and a brace on his knee, after suffering a “gruesome” injury that sidelined him at last month’s Australian Open.<\/p>\n
He was flanked by his current girlfriend Costeen Hatzi, an interior designer, and his mother Norlaila.<\/p>\n
Canberra-born Kyrgios, known for his mercurial talent and on-court outbursts, later said “mental health is tough”.<\/p>\n
“Life can seem overwhelming. But I’ve found that getting help and working on myself has helped me to feel better and to be better,” his statement read.<\/p>\n
The case was adjourned in October, as Kyrgios prepared to play the Japan Open, so experts could produce mental health reports for the court.<\/p>\n
“There’s only so much I can control and I’m taking all the steps and dealing with that off the court,” Kyrgios said from Tokyo at the time.<\/p>\n
Currently ranked 20th in the world, Kyrgios featured prominently in the first episode of Netflix’s new Break Point tennis documentary.<\/p>\n
“I now plan to focus on recovering from injury and moving forward in the best way possible,” he said.<\/p>\n
The fan favourite won the Australian Open men’s doubles crown with close friend Thanasi Kokkinakis last year but was ruled out of this year’s tournament before playing a match.<\/p>\n
His manager Daniel Horsfall said he had recently undergone surgery to remove a cyst inside his knee.<\/p>\n
“The surgery went great, to be honest, we couldn’t have asked for a better result,” he told radio station SEN.<\/p>\n
“He might be recovering faster than what we were expecting, so it’s good news.”<\/p>\n
Kyrgios burst to fame as a 19-year-old in 2014, when he shocked the tennis world by beating Rafael Nadal to reach the quarter-finals of Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Often criticised for squandering his talents, Kyrgios reached the final of last year’s Wimbledon, but was comprehensively beaten by Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CANBERRA: Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios on Friday pleaded guilty to assaulting a former girlfriend, but avoided a conviction for what the magistrate called a “single act of stupidity”. Appearing in a Canberra court, the Wimbledon finalist admitted assaulting then-girlfriend Chiara Passari on January 10, 2021, by pushing her to the ground after a heated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113029,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113027\/revisions\/113029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/113028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}