The controversial Australian also revealed his annoyance at what he said was a lack of support from former Australian men’s tennis champions during his topsy-turvy charge to the tournament decider, but 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt had been the exception, he said.

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“They haven’t always been the nicest to me personally. They haven’t always been supportive,” said Kyrgios.

“They haven’t been supportive these two weeks. It’s hard for me to kind of read things that they say about me.”

Suddenly Kyrgios is on the verge of securing Australia consecutive Wimbledon singles champions for the first time in more than 50 years. Last year Ashleigh Barty ended the country’s drought in producing a ladies’ champion at Wimbledon, realising a childhood dream.

The Canberran said he was enormously supportive of Barty when she ended the country’s Australian Open singles drought in January, and current Australian players had been great with him here.

“When I saw Ash Barty in the final of Australia, I was nothing but happy,” Kyrgios said.

“I would never say a bad word about an Australian making a final. Like that’s just me.”

On his relationship with two-time major winner Hewitt, Kyrgios said he’d had a 90-minute hit up with him on grass in Sydney before flying to Europe.

“[The only] great that’s ever been supportive of me the whole time has been Lleyton Hewitt,” Kyrgios said.

“He kind of knows that I kind of do my own thing. I’m definitely the outcast of the Australian players.

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“He just sends me a message here or there, [saying] ‘keep going’. That’s literally it - just ‘well done, keep going’.

“It’s pretty sad because I don’t get any support from any of the other [former] Australian tennis players.

“It’s weird they just have like a sick obsession with tearing me down for some reason.”

The rare circumstances that led to him skipping a slam match deep in the tournament - in modern tennis only two players have been in his shoes and not had to play their semis, Steffi Graf at the 1988 US Open and Jim Courier at the 1992 Australian Open - only left him thinking about the final well ahead of time.

“I had a shocking sleep last night, though, to be honest,” Kyrgios said.

“I probably got an hour’s sleep just with everything, like the excitement. I had so much anxiety, I was already feeling so nervous, and I don’t feel nervous usually.

“I just know there’s a lot of people that want me to do well and give my best.”

Asked about his standing in the game, which could be affected by Sunday’s result, and whether he was poised to help fill the inevitable gap in tennis caused by the eventual retirements of the big three – Djokovic, Nadal and Roger Federer – Kyrgios was not looking forward to the scrutiny.

“If I ever win a grand slam trophy, please don’t put the pressure on me to win another one,” he said.

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World No.40 Kyrgios is the lowest-ranked and first unseeded Wimbledon men’s singles finalist since fellow Australian Mark Philippoussis, ranked 48, who lost to Roger Federer in 2003.

Kyrgios is also the lowest-ranked grand slam men’s finalist since world No.54 Marcos Baghdatis at the 2006 Australian Open.

On Thursday, Nadal, 36, fronted a packed media conference to explain his withdrawal, less than 24 hours before he would have been on centre court against Kyrgios.

The superstar said he had spent most of the day weighing up the call. “I have a tear in the muscle in the abdominal,” Nadal told reporters.

“The communication is too late because I was thinking the whole day of the decision to make. I think it’s obvious that if I keep going, the injury [is] going to be worse and worse.”

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