Nick Kyrgios claimed “realistically” he has played his final singles match at the Australian Open after his straight sets defeat to British No.3 Jacob Fearnley.

The Aussie, who was playing only his second match since June 2023, struggled with an abdominal strain suffered in the build-up to his home Grand Slam.

Ruthless world No.86 Fearnley took advantage to win 7-6 6-3 7-6 to silence the crowd in the John Cain Arena.

Kyrgious hit a tweener, a behind-the-back shot and an underarm serve but could not reproduce the form which took him to the 2022 Wimbledon final. Since then he has undergone career-threatening knee and wrist injuries.

“I'm one of the biggest servers on tour and I'm getting outserved tonight,” he said. “My average serve speed was beneath 200.

“I mean, Nick Kyrgios without his serve, I'm not a threat to many players. realistically I can't see myself playing a singles match here again.

“No regrets. I've had an amazing - my journey is not over, but I've had an amazing journey. My career's been amazing. I don't have any regrets.”

Kyrgios, 29, is playing doubles here with his friend Thanasi Kokkinakis and he said he would play the other Majors this season on his protected ranking. “Hopefully, if my body's feeling good, I'll be able to make some noise at Wimbledon,” he said.

But the former world No.13 still enjoyed his first match back at the Australian Open since 2022 - and gave generous praise to his Scottish opponent.

“I knew I wasn't 100 per cent going into this match,” he said. “I'm not saying that's why I lost. He outplayed me. He served. He outserved me.

“He returned well. He did a lot of things amazing. He's played a lot of matches. He's an in-form player. He's transitioning very nicely.

“Honestly, the reason I kept playing, tried to play tonight, was because of the fans. As I said, I don't know how many times I'm going to be back here again.

“That's why I didn't have headphones on, I wasn't listening to music. I walked out there today, wanted to hear the crowd. There were some special moments.

“I knew tonight was going to be tough. With my physical state going into the match, I knew that I was going to be really hindered with my serve.

“But just seeing the fans line up for four, five hours, just the amount of people that were there supporting me, it was hard to kind of throw the towel in. Would have been really easy to kind of just roll over.

“I tried to do the best I could with the state I was in physically. Obviously heartbreaking because, yeah, I obviously wanted to play well. I feel like my level's there.

“Obviously the timing of the abdominal strain is not ideal. But it is what it is.”