It is a Tuesday night in Magaluf. Nick Kyrgios, 31, is in a nightclub. Two days later, he is on a tennis court in Mallorca, losing in straight sets to fellow Australian Adam Walton. That sequence of events has now cost him a month of his career, €6,570 in prize money, and what little remained of his reputation for clean living.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency confirmed this week that Kyrgios tested positive for benzoylecgonine — the main metabolite of cocaine — after a sample taken during the Mallorca Open. He could have faced a maximum three-month suspension, but the ITIA reduced the penalty after he cooperated fully with investigators and enrolled in a treatment programme. His ban expired on Thursday, making him eligible to compete immediately. What makes the story more than a routine doping case is the wider portrait it paints.

Kyrgios has dropped to 918th in the world rankings, a brutal fall for a player who once reached No. 13. Injuries to his knee and wrist have gutted his season — he has managed just four singles matches in 2025 — and his last competitive outing was a first-round doubles defeat at Wimbledon alongside Alexander Bublik. In a lengthy Instagram statement after his suspension was first announced, he wrote: "Coming to terms with being near the end of my career has been harder than I ever imagined.

" Cocaine sits on the World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited list as both a stimulant and a substance of abuse, though the rules draw a distinction between in-competition and out-of-competition use.