It’s time to dream of an Aussie winner at the tennis but the past counsels otherwise
Is he Australia’s great tennis hope? Courtney Walsh in The Australian, yesterday:
Nick Kyrgios faces a testing fortnight if he is to continue his impressive start to the season at the Australian Open beginning Monday. (He) stamped himself as a legitimate chance to become the first Australian since Mark Edmondson in 1976 to win the (Open) in Melbourne by winning the Brisbane International and will be well fancied (in the first round).
Or are we destined to be disappointed? The Sydney Morning Herald, October 13, 2016:
Nick Kyrgios has refused to acknowledge any responsibility to the paying public after his capitulation against German qualifier Mischa Zverev, blaming mental and physical fatigue for his failure to “show up” for Wednesday’s unedifying Shanghai Masters debacle. “That’s your choice. You want to buy a ticket, come and watch me? You know I’m unpredictable. It’s your choice,” a defiant Kyrgios said later. “I don’t owe you anything.”
Sky Sports traced some of Kyrgios’s implosions, August 13, 2015:
During Australia’s July Davis Cup quarter-final with Kazakhstan, Kyrgios was heard shouting: “I don’t want to be here.” The mohawked world number 41 went on to smash his racquet ... and blamed frustration at his own game for the outburst, saying: “I didn’t think I was having that much fun out there, to be honest.”
Kyrgios had the tennis world twittering during Wimbledon in 2015. Sky Sports continues:
In his first match at Wimbledon Kyrgios escaped punishment when he appeared to call an official “dirty scum” by saying he was addressing himself.
Monica Attard, ABC’s The Drum, August 14, 2015:
A year ago Kyrgios had Australia rooting for him. Every breathtaking shot filled us with hope that finally we had hit the tennis jackpot. It would be more than a passing tragedy if all that talent and all our hope was squandered by the inability of a prodigious talent to exercise self-control. That we would never forgive. He’ll have to play some astounding tennis and score some brilliant wins, and his mother and brother will have to stop making excuses for his nasty sledge at (Stan) Wawrinka for us to retrieve even a fraction of the goodwill we had just a year ago.
Bitcoin mania? Chief investment officer for Escala Partners, Giselle Roux, in The Australian, yesterday:
It’s just a joke ... It’s silly. It’s symptomatic that there’s a bit of “fear of missing out” money running around — and it’s not particularly well-informed money ... So I’m quite happy to miss out (on bitcoin).
But former Essendon footballer and Geelong coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson isn’t missing out, The Australian, yesterday:
A former football colleague said the last time he ran into Thompson before Christmas, he “looked awful” but spoke excitedly about having become involved in trading the digital crypto-currency bitcoin. “He was heavily involved in some trading syndicate and he’d become very animated talking about it,” the former colleague said. Thompson had claimed, “We’re absolutely flying’’ in reference to his investment.
Fortune, online, Thursday:
As bitcoin’s price has soared, so too has the energy consumption to produce it — to the point that bitcoin mining now guzzles more electricity than all the electric cars in the world. In 2018, bitcoin’s power demand is set to more than triple, consuming as much energy in a year as the entire nation of Argentina, according to a new report by Morgan Stanley. The bank’s analysts forecast that bitcoin mining could use up more than 125 terawatt hours of electricity, a level electric vehicles globally won’t reach until 2025.