Nick Kyrgios will be sidelined for at least a month, and possibly also miss Australia's first round Davis Cup tie against the Czech Republic in early March, after an MRI scan last week revealed bone stress in the teenager's back.
Kyrgios, who played through pain to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals, received the scan results in Canberra on Sunday, and will take a minimum two-week break from training until the injury is reassessed. He will then be monitored on a weekly basis until doctors deem it safe and prudent to resume hitting.
Tournaments in Marseilles and Dubai have already been sacrificed, and Kyrgios' participation in the Davis Cup fixture from March 6-8 remains in doubt. The 19-year-old will be at a career-high ranking of 35th on Monday, with No.48 Bernard Tomic also set to rise 18 places after a fourth-round appearance at Melbourne Park.
Kyrgios' coach, Todd Larkham, confirmed to Fairfax Media the discovery of bone stress in the L3 vertebrae, revealing his charge had first felt discomfort during the IPTL in December, but been cleared of a stress fracture by a CT scan upon his return.
"He's off the court completely for two weeks, and the plan at this point is to pull out of everything in February, so he's pulling out of Marseilles and Dubai," Larkham said. "The doctor really thinks it will be 4-6 weeks, so if it's four weeks it means he could play Davis Cup, if it's six he might not be able to.
"So we're really just playing it by ear, see how the next few weeks go, and assess how it progresses. We don't know how quickly it's going to heal. The doctor just said 'I just can't tell you if you're going to be able to play Davis Cup or not… You're not going to know until the week before, really, whether it's going to be all right'."
He was not quite right during the Australian Open, which makes the exciting youngster's demanding passage to the last eight via two four-set and two five-set matches even more meritorious. "He had the cortisone (injections) back in December, just before Christmas, but he didn't take pain-killers, he just played through it," Larkham said.
"It was obviously very gutsy, and he was in a lot of pain, but he just wanted to play the tournament, and wanted to do well, so it was a pretty damn good effort, I think, making the quarters with a bone stress injury in your back."
After the resignation of Pat Rafter last week, Australia will be led by interim captain Wally Masur in Ostrava, with the squad likely to include Tomic, Lleyton Hewitt, Sam Groth and Thanasi Kokkinakis. The tie will be played on an indoor hardcourt, without Czech No.1 Tomas Berdych, a mainstay of the title-winning team in 2012 and 2013.
Meanwhile, Tomic, has entered into a part-time coaching arrangement with the highly-respected Tony Roche, starting in March. His father and lifelong coach, John, will concentrate on the development of the younger Tomic, Sara, and confirmed to Fairfax Media that Roche would work with his son for five or six weeks a year, when the pair are at cup ties and other common events.
