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By Giri Nathan Photographs by Radka Leitmeritz
[vc_empty_space height="35px"]The first week of the Australian Open offered an answer to the question: What would Nick Kyrgios look like if you actually provided him with the best available conditions to succeed? As one of his most prolific apologists—man, I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was little—it’s a thought experiment I’ve mulled over for a while. There’s no question about the underlying physical talent there. The trick is fending off self-sabotage. That is hard. Maybe fundamentally impossible. But this go-around at his home Slam, many of the usual obstacles were removed, offering perhaps as clear a picture of Kyrgios’ ceiling as we’ve yet seen.