Nicolas Kuhn arrived in Torrevieja when he was just a few months old. With a German father and Russian mother he was born in Innsbruck, where his father was working at the time, although the family home was in the Torrelamata area.
As such the young tennis prodigy was educated and raised in Torrevieja where his fledgling tennis career took off at Torrevieja Tennis Club.
Nicolas took up the game at the age of three or four, combining it with karting until he was eleven, in which he also competed at national level, but by the age of ten he excelled more in the racket sport, which he loved.
One of Nico’s first coaches in Torrevieja was Pedro Caprotta with who he remained until the age of twelve when he moved to Equelite, Juan Carlos Ferrero’s academy in Villena. He remained with Ferrero until the age of seventeen when he returned to Pedro and his best ranking in the Association of Professional Tennis Players (ATP) – 160 in the world at the end of 2017.
A year later Nicolas suffered a fracture in his foot, breaking it in a tournament in Italy. The pair then separated for a while but, after making it to the Wimbledon main singles draw (2022), they got back together, along with his son David who is now Nico’s physical trainer.
Nico grew up watching Agassi and Sampras, as well as Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, who were his idols, players that we all remember. In the women’s category, he followed Steffi Graf, Justine Henin, Amalie Mauresmo and the Williams sisters, when women’s tennis was still ‘interesting to watch’.
Now Nicolas says that Tennis is quite boring. “Everyone plays the same and there are no special talents like in the past”.
Nico goes on to add, “It may sound disrespectful, but I say it for both men’s and women’s tennis. Today’s tennis is quite boring when compared to the era of David Nalbandian, Federer, Djokovic, Andy Murray and Stefan Edberg, who represented a repertoire of players that will never be equalled, because they all had a different style of play, incredible quality.
Nowadays everyone hits hard and is physically strong, there is no variety anymore and the matches are almost always the same. I still watch a lot of old school videos, to keep learning.”
After a period of injuries, he is now eager to regain his fitness and continue to improve his technique, in the same way that led him to play in the Wimbledon singles draw in 2022.
“Putting it into perspective, I would say that I am more of a Djokovic type of player. I have a lot of power, I am very flexible, fast and strong, but if I have to highlight the main strength about my game it is my mentality, because, after all the ordeal I have been through, if I still enjoy myself on the court, it is thanks to my mental strength. I also try to be aggressive in my game, I like to come to the net a lot”.
Regarding his professional dream, he does not hesitate to state that he wants to “be number one in the world”; he has no shortage of virtues and talent.
For the moment though he still has a long way to go. After his match against Carlos Alcaraz in Hamburg (2022) he ruptured his knee and at the end of the year he had several operations, three herniated discs. In short, you could say that he was then out of the game for a year.
He therefore lost his ranking so, this season, he really started from scratch. The initial goal for the year was to play the whole year without any injuries and after winning tournaments in La Nucia and Córdoba, he was ranked 295th. Nico also recently defeated a player who is ranked below 70th in the world, so as he picks up on his game and his fitness it really is only a matter of time.
