Nick Kyrgios refuses to 'crawl to the finish line' like Andy Murray and Rafa Nadal

Nick Kyrgios has claimed he will not be "crawling to the finish line" of his tennis career like Andy Murray and Rafa Nadal.

But the 2022 Wimbledon finalist, who plans to return to action in December before playing the Australian Open, has revealed he still struggles with his mental health. "I fight it most days," said the Aussie.

Kyrgios, 29, has only played one ATP match in the last year because of knee, foot and wrist injuries and has hinted he could retire.

Murray, 37, said goodbye to tennis at the Paris Olympics while 38-year-old Nadal will bid farewell at the Davis Cup finals in Malaga next month. Both Grand Slam legends have struggled with injuries in the closing years of their careers.

And Kyrgios, who enjoys a good relationship with the Scot, said: "I look at how Andy Murray's doing it now, and how Rafael is going out, I don't want to be like that either, I don't want to be kind of crawling to the finish line in a sense.

"What Andy Murray's achieved in this sport is second to basically no one, like, unless you're Novak, Federer, or Nadal, like, the next person is Andy Murray. It's like you've achieved everything. You deserve to go out, I think, a little bit more gracefully than he's done. I think, that the surgeries, the pain, it's just not worth it, in my opinion."

Kyrgios told The Louis Theroux Podcast that Murray spotted he had been self-harming by cutting his forearms during a "bad period" at Wimbledon in 2019.

"It was pretty hectic," he said. "Just sharp things...yeah, I got bored. And then I guess just doing things like that. And then he noticed it and I obviously couldn't go on Centre Court of Wimbledon with it. So I had to put like a sleeve on. Yeah, no one noticed. It was horrible. I mean, I almost kinda enjoyed feeling that way. And that's when I knew I had to get out of it."

The Aussie has previously revealed he "genuinely contemplated" suicide and spent time in a London psychiatric hospital before and after losing to Nadal at Wimbledon in 2019.

"Well, they wanted me to stay for a bit, but I was like: 'I have other duties that I need to fulfil'," he said. "I nearly got him though. I nearly beat him.

"I was just struggling with being who I was, it was hard at that time and I didn't feel like I could take a step back from the sport and kind of work on myself and get myself in the right headspace. I was just playing and playing and playing and kind of dealing with everything. And it was a dark time. Like I was drinking and I was spiralling out of control and I was continuing to play and travel. It was a lot."

Kyrgios said he could consume "20 or 30 drinks" a night. "I'd drink like a fish," he said. But then just wake up and play Nadal the next day. Give him a good run for his money.

Asked by Theroux if he feels in a good place now, Kyrgios said: "No, I mean, I fight it most days. Like, I don't wake up feeling amazing...I feel like I know my steps to get me out of my bad thinking now...I feel like I could go back into those habits in an instant. That's how it feels. I feel like I could do those things, but I don't want to. Like, before, I didn't have any resistance. I don't want to do that now."

The Louis Theroux Podcast is available on Spotify now.