After her son Nick had lost in torturous fashion yet again Wednesday, after she had been put through an emotional wringer with him, Norlaila Kyrgios leaned against a metal barrier in the front row of the makeshift Louis Armstrong Stadium at the United States Open.

She asked for someone to retrieve Nick’s smashed racket.

He had mangled it in frustration after dropping the third set of a 6-3, 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 loss to his Australian countryman John Millman.

Norlaila Kyrgios is accustomed to attending to Nick like this, picking up after him in every way imaginable. Early each morning, leading to this tournament, she had power-walked from her Manhattan hotel to a laundromat near the corner of 58th Street and Second Avenue, carrying a bundle of her son’s dirty tennis clothes.

This is the lot in life for the devoted mother, seen recently on a tennis broadcast urging her temperamental son to “just try.” The role of tour mother to such an immensely talented, frustrating athlete can be a great delight and a considerable burden.