Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer et al can now exhale. Nick Kyrgios says he has no burning desire to challenge for the top ranking.

"Becoming No. 1 doesn't really excite me at all, to be honest," Kyrgios told the Strait Times of Singapore recently, while picking up some easy money in a floundering International Professional Tennis League exhibition. "It's not something I wish that I was. "Whether I am 13 in the world, one in the world, 20 in the world, doesn't really bother me at all. It's just tennis. It's so small in the scheme of things."

That might represent a breathtaking global vision, but it's unlikely anyone with that attitude is getting anywhere near the summit of the game. Besides, while Kyrgios' résumé is excellent, it isn't exactly mind-blowing. He's earned three career titles thus far, all last year. But he's never won a Masters 1000 or been past the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam.

Heaping scorn on Kyrgios, while tempting, is too easy. Any hopes that his talent and behavior will be channeled into the conventional conduits are fading.

Kyrgios hasn't had a coach for two years. That's outrageous.

Kyrgios hasn't listened to anyone in at least as long, and that's just as alarming on a different front.

Kyrgios' roster of potential advisers includes avuncular figures whom he actually likes and respects, like Australian icon, Davis Cup coach and frequent practice partner Lleyton Hewitt. But Kyrgios has grown jaded. "I don't really care, to be honest," he said of all the advice lobbed his way. "I got people telling me what I should do, how I should act, every day, and I don't really care."

The game could really use an infusion of the youthful exuberance and charisma he's shown at the best of times, but right now, the only reliable talent Kyrgios has is for sparking controversy. It something the wildly talented, basketball-obsessed native of Canberra, Australia, has become expert at. He's a mercurial, riveting showman; his penchant for stepping over the line is as powerful as his urge to hit for the lines. He charms fans, but he also curses and bickers with them and officials. He also seems to disregard the basic conventions of his profession.

Kyrgios' ugliest moment occurred in Montreal in the summer of 2015, when he dragged Stan Wawrinka's girlfriend's name through the muck in a bout of on-court trash-talking caught on courtside microphones. His most pathetic demonstration? Kyrgios flagrantly tanked a match in the Shanghai Masters in October. It earned him an ATP suspension. That was just days after Kyrgios enjoyed the finest moment of his professional life -- winning the ATP 500 Japan Open.

Is the proximity of the two events psychologically significant?

Kyrgios also thumbed his nose at Davis Cup (a cardinal sin in Australia) and skipped the Olympics.

Kyrgios isn't just a cut-up tweaking the establishment. He seems radically alienated. Imagine a guy who's spent his entire youth wanting to be a doctor, right through premed and residency. Then, just as his great talents as a surgeon become manifest, he decides he hates the medical profession. He gets a high-profile position at a great hospital and proceeds to tell anyone who'll listen that what he really and truly loves is ... lawyering (for Kyrgios, it's basketball).

How is this supposed to end well?

Perhaps there's a rosier interpretation. Kyrgios met with a sports psychologist as part of his punishment for tanking. Perhaps this attitude about the top ranking is part of a coping mechanism intended to make his life happier, if not easier.

Right now, it doesn't seem to be doing either.