If you look in Nick Kyrgios’ player box at tournaments across the world, there are a few constants. One of them is his manager, Daniel Horsfall. ‘Horse’ is not the typical tennis manager, though. He was Kyrgios’ friend first.
The pair’s relationship dates back to their junior days in Canberra at Daramalan College, a school for students in Years 7-12. For Kyrgios’ fans, it will be no surprise that they met on the schoolyard basketball court.
“We didn’t really get along. It was maybe two or three weeks when we were playing basketball every day, going head to head and arguing, just being competitive,” Horsfall told ATPTour.com. “One day we got put on the same team and it just changed. Since [then] we’ve never looked back and been pretty close, attached at the hip for a few years there. It’s kind of led to where we all are now. He’s definitely like a brother from another mother. I’m very close with his family.”
Horsfall was not a big tennis fan. The only match he recalls from his childhood was when Lleyton Hewitt played the Australian Open final. He watched part of the match with his nan and pop.
“I don’t even remember watching the whole thing. It was pretty late. I went to bed and I was told the result, but it meant nothing to me,” Horsfall said. “Obviously being at school in Australia, a lot of people play rugby or soccer or basketball. Tennis is not really an accessible school sport. You don’t really get teams of tennis in Australia. It’s more of a college, U.S. thing I think. I honestly didn’t know much about tennis and Nick Kyrgios in that sense.”
Horsfall knew Kyrgios as a basketball player. Nick signed up for the school team, but was rarely there because of tennis, and his teammates paid it no mind.
“It wasn’t until I became closer with him and friends with him. We would go out and eat Chinese food or play Pokemon for like 16 hours without sleep,” Horsfall said. “But I started to understand who he was and that he played tennis and that he was pretty good, that he had to travel to play sport. That means you’re pretty good. And then we graduated and then all of a sudden obviously I’d followed his career and he was overseas and we were waiting for him to come back all the time.”
According to Horsfall, they “used to have sleepovers every day”. But he did not fully realise the scope of what Kyrgios was doing until the Australian upset Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2014.
As Kyrgios…
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