Kyrgios faces up to four-year ban after positive cocaine test at Mallorca Open
Nick Kyrgios tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine at the Mallorca Open in June and now faces a potential ban of up to four years alongside a mandatory provisional suspension that will prevent him from competing; he described the result as a "huge mistake" and has said he will step away from public life for the next 28 days.
At 31, Kyrgios was attempting another comeback from serious knee and wrist injuries when the positive test was recorded; he has won seven ATP Tour singles titles but has played only eight tournaments and won two matches since the start of 2023, and previously said there was "zero chance" he would be playing tennis into his thirties. Kyrgios wrote that "Coming to terms with being near the end of my career has been harder than I ever imagined."
The positive test was reported from June's Mallorca Open and the case will be heard by an independent tribunal, after which he could receive a ban of up to four years; a mandatory provisional suspension applies while the investigation proceeds. Kyrgios told followers the incident was a "huge mistake" for which he takes full responsibility and that he will "do the work and come back better" during his 28-day withdrawal from public life.
Kyrgios's career contains high-profile achievements alongside episodes of on-court volatility: as a 19-year-old he beat then world number one Rafael Nadal on his Centre Court debut in 2014 and he reached the Wimbledon final in 2022, where he lost to Novak Djokovic. The article describes him as a "flamboyant and athletic shot-maker with flair, touch and an explosive game," while also noting he has "regularly struggled to sustain the levels of professionalism and abstinence needed for a prolonged stay at the very top."
His disciplinary record includes a suspended 28-day ban in 2015 for making lewd remarks about Stan Wawrinka's girlfriend, and an eight-week ban in 2016 for behaviour including a "lack of best effort" at the Shanghai Masters that was reduced to three weeks after he agreed to consult a sports psychologist. In 2019 Kyrgios was defaulted from a match at the Italian Open for throwing a chair and was fined $113,000 for verbally abusing umpire Fergus Murphy in Cincinnati, and the ATP issued a suspended 16-week ban for a "pattern of behaviour related to his verbal abuse of officials and/or spectators" over the previous 12 months.
Kyrgios has spoken publicly about personal struggles; in the Netflix Break Point documentary he described 2019 as the "lowest point of my career" and said, "I was drinking, abusing drugs. I lost my relationship with my family, pushed all my close friends away." He has said he wore a compression sleeve to cover self-harming scars and spent time in a psychiatric hospital in London to try and "figure out my problems," and told Louis Theroux in 2024 that he would sometimes have "20 to 30 drinks" before playing the next day. Kyrgios has also admitted to playing large amounts of basketball during his career, including before his 2017 Cincinnati semi-final win over David Ferrer, and said, "I just enjoy doing whatever I'm doing," adding, "I don't eat well. I don't train just for tennis, I train just for a general happy living - I know it sounds ridiculous, but I play a bit of tennis on the side."
Off-court incidents cited in the article include a 2023 admission that he assaulted ex-girlfriend Chiara Passari by pushing her on the pavement; the magistrate described the episode as "a single act of stupidity or frustration" when sparing him a criminal record. He publicly distanced himself from Andrew Tate two years ago, telling the BBC he had "deleted posts, unfollowed him and gone to all lengths to distance" himself from Tate. The piece notes Kyrgios is currently world number 919, has criticised tennis' anti-doping system as "awful," and wrote "Sad day for tennis. Fairness in tennis does not exist," after Jannik Sinner accepted a three-month ban for testing positive for clostebol.
The outcome of the tribunal and the length of any suspension will determine whether Kyrgios can continue playing into his thirties, and the legal and adjudicative process is expected to take many months with the mandatory provisional suspension already preventing competition in the meantime.