Hey Nick! Am I ever going to see your face again? Wimbledon?

Nick Kyrgios has been off the tour for nearly eight months. The grass court season starts in 16 days. What’s doing?

Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios at the net following last year’s Wimbledon final. Picture: Getty Images.

You’re only as good as your last match, innings, round, fight, race, lap, heat. Which complicates the increasingly curious case of Nick Kyrgios’s Wimbledon campaign. His most recent hit was so long ago I can only recall a thing or two about it. Perhaps he’s retired and forgotten to tell or tweet anyone about it.

Kyrgios hasn’t been sighted on the ATP Tour since October. There was so much talk about him during the Australian summer that you forget he didn’t play a single meaningful point. He entered everything, withdrew from everything, limped through an exhibition with Novak Djokovic and vanished to the medical tent. He’s still in there, citing ankle and elbow injuries, pulling the pin on next week’s French Open. Clay’s in the too-hard basket at the best of times.

So, if any given tennis player, cricketer, golfer, boxer, swimmer, Formula One driver, surfer, netballer, footballer or besieged State of Origin coach is only as good as his last match, Kyrgios is only as good as his forfeit to American Taylor Fritz at Tokyo on the October weekend of last year’s NRL grand final.

The last match he actually blessed with his presence wasn’t much chop – a 3-6 6-2 6-2 win over Poland’s World No. 203 Kamil Majchrzat in the preceding round, a discombobulated old night at the office. All I properly remember is some of the best – and worst – tennis you’ll ever see in your life.

Kyrgios must have been properly hurt to miss the Laver Cup. The appearance money is always so vast he doesn’t have to worry about the rising electricity costs in a cold Canberra winter. Then again, a seven-figure payday only just settles those bills. For the next seven invisible months, he’s either been in Rocky Balboa-mode ahead of another Wimbledon campaign, running the steps to Parliament House and hitting a thousand balls a day, or he’s been playing video games. Perhaps it’s been a bit of both.

He was the best player in the world for a while last year. I saw his Wimbledon final. Unless it was the Pimms, we could’ve sworn he was about to win it. He was the dominant player against Djokovic. The most aggressive. The superior grasscourter. The mood in the stands was supportive. The Wild Thing was going to conquer The All England Club with backwards cap and red clown shoes and the Poms were all for it, celebrating like John Daly was winning the PGA Championship again.

Then Kyrgios’ weakness reared its unmistakeable head. The discombobulation. He lost his composure, the match and opportunity of a lifetime.

Then he won Washington. Then he hit Daniil Medvedev off the court at the US Open. Phenomenal tennis, and that’s when he was the best player in the world. Karen Khachanov was at Kyrgios’ mercy in the quarter-finals. The Australian was tournament favourite with New York bookies because Djokovic’s anti-vax stance had him standing on his veranda back in Belgrade. Then one regrettably errant game to start the fifth set cost Kyrgios the match.

Nick’s in good nick? Bad nick? Who knows? Can someone with a Twitter account ask him for us? He usually starts his grass court season at Stuttgart. That begins in 16 days. He’s entered but for a long time now, the difference between Kyrgios nominating for an event and hitting a ball is vast. He’s missed. When’s the last time anyone in Australia mentioned tennis? He filled the void after Ash Barty’s retirement. Then created an even bigger void by nicking off.

The two greatest minds in Australian sport, HG and Roy, got it right recently. “He’s not a villain!” Roy roared. “He’s just a loveable rogue!”