Nick Kyrgios overcomes injury woes to return to court for Australian Open tilt | Nick Kyrgios

Nick Kyrgios will make his long-awaited return to competitive tennis at the Brisbane International after playing just one ATP Tour match in more than two years.

The 29-year-old firebrand has been mostly sidelined with career-threatening wrist and knee injuries since the 2022 US Open quarterfinals. That run came six weeks after reaching the Wimbledon decider, when he came the closest to an elusive major crown before falling in four sets to Novak Djokovic.

Kyrgios, who has also indicated his intentions to play in the 2025 Australian Open, will be a headline act at the Brisbane International, which gets underway on December 29. Before then, Kyrgios will play in the World Tennis League exhibition event in Abu Dhabi, where the mixed team also attracts the likes of Iga Swiatek, Casper Ruud, Aryna Sabalenka, Taylor Fritz and Daniil Medvedev.

Kyrgios withdrew late from the 2023 Australian Open due to a knee injury that required surgery, before pulling out of the French Open later that year with a foot problem.

Winner of seven titles on the ATP Tour, Kyrgios subsequently tore a ligament in his wrist, which also required surgery with his final Tour match, a brief return to grass in Stuttgart in June 2023.

Currently unranked, the one-time world No.13 said he was excited to resume his career in front of home fans.

“Honestly, it’s probably the best I’ve felt in two years,” Kyrgios told the Nine Network. “I played the amazing year in 2022. Then at the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open, that’s when I started to feel some problems in my wrist. I got that wrist reconstruction and now I’m doing great.

“It was a 15 percent chance that I would come back to play at this level and here we are. It will be sick to get back in front of the home fans.”