Tennis: Mystery surrounds Nick Kyrgios counselling as he returns to ATP Tour

Nick Kyrgios is set to return to the ATP Tour after a break for counselling. Photo/AP

Nick Kyrgios has served a reduced ban and is free to return to the ATP Tour but mystery surrounds the nature of counselling he received.

Kyrgios was suspended for eight weeks for 'not giving his best effort' at last month's Shanghai Masters but the tour said it would reduce the ban to three weeks if the Australian consulted a sports psychologist.

Senior Tennis Australia official Todd Woodbridge says the 21-year-old has now completed the three-week ban and can return to the tour when he wants.

"His three weeks are up and he could be back out on tour playing if he chose to," Woodbridge said in Adelaide today. However the doubles great said he did not know specific details of the counselling the troubled star has received.

"I'm not really sure on that," Woodbridge said. "(The plan) was obviously to go seek sports psychology to work on all attributes of his game, both on and off the court.

"But I'm not privy to who he's seen and how that was played out."

Tennis Australia has been tight-lipped about the 'care plan' and for how long Kygrios committed to it, while the organisation's director of tennis performance Pat Rafter has kept out of the spotlight.

The ATP has said the details of the plan are confidential. Woodbridge believed the tour was right to punish Kyrgios and the three-week ban was fair.

"The punishment was there. I think everybody agreed that he had to get something," he said.

"Now that's done, we look forward to what he's going to be able to show us in the new year."

Woodbridge couldn't promise an unblemished approach from the world No.14 in future but he believed Kyrgios would handle the stresses of the tour better as he matured.

"He's going to have his moments. That's what makes him as good as he is and interesting to watch," Woodbridge said.

"I think he's become more used to the tour - and what the media, his sponsors and everybody else expects of him.
"He's another year older moving into next year and I think he'll start to cope with all of those things better."

The ATP Tour has all but wrapped up for the year so Kyrgios will now prepare for his 2017 campaign, starting with the Hopman Cup in Perth in January as he gets ready for the Australian Open.

Woodbridge was in Adelaide to announce details of the city's January exhibition tournament the World Tennis Challenge, which will host Kyrgios, Czech star Tomas Berdych, his coach Goran Ivanisevic and champion brothers Bob and Mike Bryan.

AAP