Australia’s Nick Kyrgios revealed he spent time in a psychiatric ward following a loss at Wimbledon in 2019 because of suicidal thoughts. The comments from Kyrgios, widely published in Australia on Thursday based on interviews for the upcoming Netflix documentary series “Break Point,” are the latest on his longtime struggles with mental health. He went to a hospital in London to “figure out my problems” after the loss to Rafael Nadal four years ago at Wimbledon, where he wore a compression sleeve over his arm during his singles matches to conceal his scars. “I was genuinely contemplating suicide,” Kyrgios said. “I lost at Wimbledon. I woke up and my dad was sitting on the bed, full-blown crying. That was the big wake-up call for me. I was like ‘OK, I can’t keep doing this.’ ” Kyrgios said he was “drinking, abusing drugs” and his relationships were deteriorating. The 28-year-old has spent months on the sidelines with injuries since reaching the 2022 Wimbledon final, which he lost to Novak Djokovic. He returned this week at Stuttgart after seven months off, but lost in the first round.

Robot umpires likely won’t be ready for a big league call-up next season. Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says the Automatic Ball-Strike System being used at Triple-A is not likely to be used in the big leagues in 2024. “I think there’s some sentiment among the group that we made had a lot of changes here,” Manfred, above, said Thursday following an owners meeting in New York. “We ought to let the dust settle and there are clearly unresolved operational issues with respect to ABS. Despite all the testing, we still have some things that are unresolved.” Defining a computerized strike zone is among the issues. The independent Atlantic League trialed the ABS system at its 2019 All-Star Game and it was used in that’s year Arizona Fall League of top prospects. The ABS was tried at eight of nine ballparks of the Low-A Southeast League in 2021, then moved up to Triple-A in 2022. At Triple-A this year, half the games use the robots for ball/strike calls and half have a human making decisions subject to appeals by teams to the ABS. MLB adopted a pitch clock this year along with changes.

Brazil and Real Madrid star Vinícius Júnior agreed to join a new task force to tackle racism in soccer, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said Thursday. Vinícius has been the target of sustained racist abuse by fans in Spanish stadiums throughout the season, with little done by referees or soccer bodies to protect him. That must stop, Infantino said in an Instagram post after he met the player. “There is no football if there is racism! So let’s stop the games,” Infantino wrote. “We will also strengthen the engagement with players ... so I am glad Vinicius accepted to be part of a task force which will include other players and will elaborate concrete and efficient measures to end racism in football.” Infantino said Thursday that more should be done to enforce soccer’s current three-step policy to stop games when players are racially abused. Infantino acknowledged the sport has plenty of issues to resolve. “It’s a football-related problem and we mustn’t look for excuses like: ‘It’s society’s problem, therefore, it’s fine in football.’ In the world of football, we must act in a very forceful way,” he said. —AP