“I don’t like tennis that much.” Source: Getty Images

Days out from his Wimbledon tilt, where the Aussie is rated one of the realistic chances outside the Big Four, Nick Kyrgios has made the surprising admission that “I don’t really like the sport of tennis that much”.

As he’s made clear in previous interviews, Kyrgios would love to have played in the NBA but opted as a teenager to pursue a career in tennis instead.

“I was all for basketball and I made the decision to play tennis,” Kyrgios told telegraph.co.uk.

“I got pushed by my parents and to this day I can still say I don’t love the sport.

“If it’s NBA on one channel and a tennis tournament on the other, I’m watching NBA 100 per cent.”

The comments come after legendary SuperBrat John McEnroe declared Kyrgios as the man to watch at Wimbledon next week.

“If I had to pick one guy to make a big breakthrough it would be Kyrgios,” Kyrgios said.

“He brings this belief and intensity. He walks out there and there is something about him.

“It is not often you see that with a player, and it is nice to see.

“If I had to pick one guy, I wouldn’t pick him to win but I would think, if there was someone other than the obvious guys, he would be the guy that I would pick more so than a year ago when I would have said a Dimitrov-Djokovic final.”

Nick Kyrgios is not afraid to express his emotions on court. Source: Getty Images

Australia is poised to enjoy its largest Wimbledon singles contingent in 20 years this year.

Victories in the second last round of qualifying for former junior champion Luke Saville and grand slam rookies John Millman and John-Patrick Smith have left Australia on track to have a whopping 16 players in the main draws at the All England Club.

Not since 1995, a generation ago when Boris Becker, Pat Cash and Davis Cup captain Wally Masur were still gracing London’s hallowed grass courts, has Australia boasted such strength in numbers at the greatest tennis show on earth.

Australia is already guaranteed at least 13 starters, led by seeded title dark horses Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic and veteran 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt in his Wimbledon swansong.

But Saville, Millman and Smith are hoping to swell Australia’s representation to numbers not seen since before the turn of the century.

Former semi-finalist Todd Woodbridge, one of 13 Aussie men to make the main draw way back in 1995 and also a nine-time Wimbledon doubles champion, hailed the “fabulous” development as a reward for the decade-long forward thinking of Tennis Australia (TA) boss Craig Tiley.

“It’s an amalgamation of good planning and getting the right people involved,” Woodbridge told AAP.

“Craig had a vision of what was needed to get Australian tennis back on track and we are now seeing the benefits.

“It has taken time but you can’t make a career in 12 months. It takes a minimum of eight years to create a player.”

The prospect of as many as 16 players in the Wimbledon singles draw comes as welcome relief for Tennis Australia.

Tomic this week reportedly opted to boycott next month’s Davis Cup quarter-final against Kazakhstan over a dispute between his father John and TA.

Kyrgios’s decision to part ways with long-time coach Todd Larkham just a week out from the championships has also caused pessimism among fans.

— with AAP