Nick Kyrgios: Everyone wanted to see me go to war with Rafael Nadal

Nick Kyrgios coasts into tomorrow’s showdown for the men’s title without having to play his semi-final - but the controversial Aussie is disappointed not to have had to face Rafael Nadal and worries the missing match could count against him.

Nadal quit Wimbledon on Thursday night after failing to recover from a stomach injury aggravated in his quarter-final, meaning their fierce rivalry would have to be put on hold.

“I found out over dinner,” Kyrgios said. “My first feeling was a bit of disappointment. This is not the way I wanted to get to the final.

“As a competitor I really wanted that match. He’s someone I’ve had so many good battles with before. We’ve both taken a win against each other at Wimbledon. I really did want to see how the third chapter was going to go.

Nick Kyrgios is pretty pleased to be getting in some extra practice for his first Grand Slam final.

“Obviously you never want to see someone like that, so important to the sport, go down with an injury like that. I just hope he recovers. I'm sure I'll play him again on a big stage. I haven’t spoken to him but after I found out I thought I'd just put just a nice post up to say: ‘Look, we've had a lot of run-ins, a lot of battles. I'm sure everyone wanted to see us go to war out there.”

Kyrgios is thrilled to have the chance, however it’s come, to compete in a Grand Slam final, rating it “exciting” and “cool”, having being convinced the day would never come. But he’s concerned his routine could be disrupted. “People will say, ‘Oh, he gets another day off’, but it’s a shock to the system. To have three days off now I’m going to have to emulate almost a match scenario because you want to have those competitive juices flowing, the adrenalin.”

Not that extra rest is a bad thing only he’s not sleeping well. “Last night just an hour, shocking. I had so much anxiety and I don’t suffer from nerves usually.”

So what was it like waking up to headlines describing his free pass to the final as “Wimbledon’s worst nightmare”? “Man, I’m just enjoying the ride,” he smiled.