Nick Kyrgios plays down comparison with Bernard Tomic

Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios has played down his comparison with Bernard Tomic, saying that he is in a category, different from his fellow countryman.

Tomic crashed out of the world's top 140 players for the first time in last six years following a dismal 2017 season which saw him getting knocked out in the opening round of each of the Grand Slams.

While Tomic was penalised for his comments following his Wimbledon elimination, Kyrgios has had his fair share of off-the-field issues.

After slumping to a first-round Wimbledon exit, Tomic had said that he felt "bored" during the course of his match against Mischa Zverev and suggested that he only played tennis for money.

Kyrgios, on the other hand, had been plagued by hip problems in the past few months, retiring in the first round of the Wimbledon with hip injury besides also withdrawing from the Rome Masters on the eve of Roland Garros.

However, 22-year-old Kyrgios insisted that Tomic has even bigger problems to address.

"Bernie has lost his way. We were pretty good mates when I was younger. I obviously didn't know the tennis tour too well back then and we were guys of similar age, representing the same country, on the road at many of the same tournaments," Sport24 quoted Kyrgios, as saying.

Insisting that Tomic needs to figure out what he really wants to do in life, Kyrgios claimed that the duo is not at all similar as the latter contradicts himself all the time.

"But a lot has changed since then. He needs to figure out what he wants to do. I can't relate to anything he says anymore," he said.

"He says one thing and he does the other. And he contradicts himself all the time. He says tennis doesn't make him happy, that he doesn't really like the game, yet he says the only thing that will really make him happy is winning a grand slam. It doesn't make sense at all," Kyrgios concluded. 

-ANI