Nick Kyrgios Returns to Tennis After One-Month Ban for Cocaine
Nick Kyrgios is free to return to tennis after accepting a one‑month ban for testing positive for cocaine – the latest twist in a career that has rarely strayed far from controversy.
The 31-year-old Australian was provisionally suspended on 4 August after a sample taken during the Mallorca Open in June showed benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine. Kyrgios told International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) investigators he had used cocaine at a nightclub in Magaluf in the early hours of 20 June, two days before he stepped on court in Mallorca.
He lost that first-round match in straight sets to fellow Australian Adam Walton. At the time, it looked like just another early exit in a season derailed by injury. The test result turned it into something far more serious.
After consulting an independent expert, the ITIA accepted Kyrgios had taken the drug out of competition. That distinction mattered. It meant he faced a maximum three-month suspension rather than a lengthier exile, and even that sanction was cut to one month once he agreed to enter a treatment programme.
The ban expired on Thursday, 3 September. Kyrgios also forfeits his Mallorca prize money of 6,570 euros (£5,650).
When the positive test was announced, he said he would step away from social media and public life for 28 days to “focus on getting myself right”. It was a rare public retreat from a player who has spent much of the past decade in the glare of tennis’ most unforgiving spotlight.
The on-court story has been bleak. Once ranked 13 in the world, Kyrgios has slipped to 918 and has managed only four singles matches this season, his body repeatedly breaking down under the strain of knee and wrist problems. His last appearance came in men’s doubles at Wimbledon, where he and Alexander Bublik went out in the first round.
In a lengthy Instagram statement after his provisional suspension, Kyrgios admitted the past few years had taken “a huge toll on me, both mentally and physically”.
“My body hasn't been able to do what my mind expects it to do,” he wrote. “Coming to terms with being near the end of my career has been harder than I ever imagined. None of that excuses what I did.”
Cocaine sits on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list as a stimulant and substance of abuse, and any association with it deepens the sense of a career constantly at war with itself.
Kyrgios has long been one of tennis’ most divisive figures. His talent has never been in doubt – seven ATP Tour singles titles, a Wimbledon final in 2022 where he pushed Novak Djokovic to four sets, and a home Australian Open men’s doubles crown alongside Thanasi Kokkinakis that same year.
The problem has always been everything else.
He has racked up hefty fines for racquet-smashing, audible obscenities and running battles with umpires. In 2023 he admitted assaulting an ex-girlfriend two years earlier, avoiding a criminal conviction but adding another heavy mark to a turbulent public image. His comments about women have drawn accusations of misogyny, criticism that intensified when he shared a post from controversial influencer Andrew Tate in 2024, before later insisting he had gone “to all lengths” to distance himself from the self-proclaimed misogynist.
He has not been shy about turning his fire on the sport’s authorities either, branding the handling of high-profile anti-doping cases involving Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek “disgusting” for tennis.
Now he finds himself on the other side of the process he so loudly condemned.
The ban is short. The questions it leaves behind are not. Kyrgios is eligible to pick up a racquet again, but after injuries, a plummeting ranking and a public admission that he is wrestling with the end of his career, the real issue is simple: does he still have the will – and the body – to write one more chapter?
