For Nick Kyrgios, it's a thin line between love and hate

Andre Agassi hated tennis. John McEnroe hated tennis. And they were two of the best-ever. Cracked and bent frames and handles poking out of bins at suburban courts testify that nearly everyone who plays tennis occasionally, or chronically, hates it.

There would be no surprise if Nick Kyrgios admitted that he hates tennis. Not now, at 20 years of age, when the world thinks he should be grateful for the life he has, but perhaps later, when sympathy will flow more readily. Agassi and McEnroe waited until the ends of their careers before confessing that the bad behaviour of their early years was their bodies' way of articulating what their brains could not. McEnroe's constant blow-ups – "I was a one-way street – mad, madder and maddest" – stemmed from "my not enjoying competitive tennis that much", he wrote in his autobiography Serious, from the mountaintop of 43 years of age. In his book Open, Agassi waited half a page before confessing: "I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have." He was 39 and a tennis saint by the time he was prepared to let the public know this.

The rule, for these tortured souls, is to wait until they have found the safe harbour of retirement before they can put their bleak secret into words. Until then, the darkness finds other avenues of expression.

For Kyrgios, this amounts to an accelerating rap sheet, with the week's trip to Shanghai netting three new offences. Smashing racquets, hitting balls away and abusing umpires is one thing, an understandable human reflex, the purpose of which is to heighten our respect for those thousands of tennis players who manage to master their emotions in the face of defeat. Grace under pressure is not necessarily normal, or should be taken for granted. But to target ball boys and opponents' personal lives is something else; in fact it is to beg for the punishment, in the form of a suspension, that now hangs over Kyrgios. For his own good, tennis should give him what he is asking for: a holiday from the game, and for tennis a holiday from him. A trial separation, to see if they still really care for each other.

As any battler knows, tennis is much less fun when you lose. I really hate tennis, due to being a stupendously crap player, and the worse I play, the more I hate not just tennis but myself. On the other hand, when I play against very young children, the elderly, or selected friends who play even worse and hate themselves even more than I do, I like it, it's a great game.

Kyrgios's attitude would no doubt be improved if he was winning more often. For all his talent, in his professional career he has won 35 matches and lost 28. Pro tennis is a tough life: you can be ranked in the top 30 in the world at a very young age, and yet on average, you win one match a week, maybe two, before you are sent on your way. There's a lot of losing to get used to, a big adjustment if you've spent your junior years as a world-beater with everyone telling you how great you are.

Winning, by comparison with losing, is jolly good fun, and you can bet Novak Djokovic is loving his tennis right now. Roger Federer has always been lauded for his demeanour, winning or losing, although he's had much more practice at the former. When it comes to brattishness, I would like to see player behaviour graded relative to win-loss ratio. There are players who lose 90 per cent of their matches and seldom do their block, treating triumph and loss as the same impostor. On the other hand, Serena Williams hardly ever loses, but when she does, is petulant and graceless 100 per cent of the time, perhaps living proof of the saying "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser". Perhaps.

As Kyrgios loses 45 per cent of the time, does he disgrace himself in 45 per cent of his matches? He has approached and possibly passed that threshold this year, and it doesn't seem that any of the suggested interventions – mentoring from Lleyton Hewitt or some other reformed old head, anger management programs, a swift kick up the gusset – have addressed, or can address, the main problem, which is that the guy is showing every sign of hating tennis as Agassi, McEnroe and a host of silent others have done. Many people, in all walks of life, see their passion burn out just before they become publicly successful. Look at all the musicians who do all their sex and drugs on the way up, and by the time it's rock'n'roll, they're just sad recovering addicts wishing for a quiet life. If he is feeling that his passion has run dry, Kyrgios is not alone. It took Agassi and McEnroe their whole careers to articulate that what they actually needed was to have the game taken away from them, so they could work out if they truly loved it any more. McEnroe admitted that he should have been disqualified for his behaviour; but the more of a drawcard he became, the more the game's promoters, sponsors and officials indulged him. Nobody benefited from that, just as nobody is benefiting from Kyrgios's continued appearances.

Some of the most troubled sportspeople have seen their game, their arena, as the refuge where they escape their private problems. Kyrgios is the other type: his game has begun to magnify everything he cannot cope with. By keeping him on the court and perversely juicing him for entertainment value, those around him are driving him closer to the brink.

Give the kid a ban, for the Australian summer too if necessary. This will be a chance for tennis to show some courage and put the player's welfare, and the game's, first. If Kyrgios isn't hating his tennis as posited, then he deserves a heavy ban anyway for being a dick. But I suspect he needs the kind of help that can come with a bit of distance. And one day, at the end of a successful career around 2030, he can write, "I hated tennis, though I didn't know it at the time. Only when it was taken away from me did I realise how much I wanted it."