I'm not going to lie, that made me like Nick more
I actually didn't disagree with much of what he said. Apart from the Stan thing. That was over the line for me wrt to Vekic
Interestingly, maybe unsurprisingly, my feeling about Nick after that podcast are the same as yours. I enjoyed listening to his honesty. It's very interesting to see the world of tennis from his perspective.
I noted that he didn't say anything "explosive" or denigrating about Fed: he just praised Fed's talent and crowned Fed as the GOAT and above Joker & Nad, regardless if Joker eventually surpasses him in GS count. That last qualification is especially interesting and underscores how truly complete Fed is as a player and a person on and off court. Perhaps Fed is not just talented but also most "natural" person playing there. He does not need to hide his feelings and showing "fake" attitude on and off the court, while Joker & Nad have their tantrums & silly routines respectively, and they must display dishonest masks all the time in the interest of their PR image. Kyrgios can see these fake masks and as a brutally honest guy, can even see the true feelings behind the masks, and no surprise he does not like them.
But, even though Nick admits that "honesty is good as long as you know when to stop", he remarkably shows that he does not know when to stop. He's shown in this interview that he pretty much did not learn anything from Wawrinka controversy. He said he would not repeat what he said on the court back then because he knows that there are microphones that would pick it up. Not that he regrets it, actually he said that
his slur was "not over the line" and that he does not regret it when asked explicitly about it. He has an explanation how his emotions have nudged him to throw out a slur but he does not regret throwing slurs and most importantly he seem not to care how Vekic feels about it. Oh, no: he stays as narcissistic with his judgement here as he was from the very start of this controversy! I conclude that Nick will always be as an immature child as he was at the beginning of his career, no matter how hard we the fans and ATP are wishing & telling him to grow up. And his playing style and the results on the court reflect that. That's the way he is.
