We’ve decided that Nick Kyrgios’s mum is proof you don’t need to mollycoddle your kids for them to succeed!
Finally, we have proof that mums don’t have to to be relentlessly positive to encourage their kids. In fact, we can even tell them to their faces that we think they are going to fail and it could lead to huge success. At least, that’s the lesson learned from Wimbledon last night, when Australian rising star Nicholas Kyrgios, 19, beat World Number One Rafael Nadal in a stunning upset to advance to the semi-finals.
It turns out that Nick’s own mum, Norlaila (Nill), doubted her son would beat Nadal and said as much. The mother and son are extremely close but it was his anger at her lack of faith that motivated him on to win.
"I was reading a comment that she thought Rafa was too good for me," he told The Australian. "It actually made me a bit angry. You would think he's in a whole other level compared to me. I just believed in myself that I could create some opportunities."
And that he did. Kyrgios entered Wimbledon this year as a Wild Card. His win over Nadal is the first time since 1992 that someone who isn't even in the 100 has beaten the world's number one.
His mum refused to watch the game. She stayed home in Canberra and wasn't even planning to watch it on TV because she finds it so difficult and emotional to watch her children suffer, and not be able to help them.
She told ABC, "I just feel hopeless, that's the feeling...I can't help him there now on his own and as a mother I can't, you know...you just can't see your children being exposed to... so many of that feelings that you just want to grab them and secure them. So I can't watch, no."
