As Kyrgios, 19, prepares to return to his home in Canberra in coming days after his Wimbledon quarter-final loss, there's at least one man here who saw his stunning success coming a long, long way off.

Chinthaka Wickramaratna was a 25-year-old when he faced Kyrgios across a court in 2005 and was soundly beaten - when the rising tennis star was just 11.

They played each other in a pennant match at the Lyneham tennis courts, when they were each ranked as the third best in their four-person teams.

Despite their 14 year age gap at the time, Mr Wickramaratna said he was soundly beaten.

"I can sympathise with Nadal. It was sort of a similar situation... No one expected him to beat Nadal and I guess if people had seen us, when they first looked at us, no one would have expected him to win," he laughed.

Mr Wickramaratna used to play tennis recreationally every week on Saturday and he said the 11-year-old Kyrgios was both the youngest and the best player he'd ever faced.

"[He was] the best in terms of ball control. I've lost a few games, obviously, but no one had the ball control that he did at such a young age," he said.

He said although he only played Kyrgios once, he used to always see him practising with coaches at the Lyneham tennis courts.

Mr Wickramaratna said seeing Kyrgios on TV nine years later was a little weird, although he was a lot taller now than he was then.

"It was quite strange [playing him] because the angle the ball used to come at was so different because he was so much shorter!" he said.

"It's really good to see him doing this well, beating the world number one."

Mr Wickramaratna said he often got teased by his friends and family over the fact he mostly stopped playing tennis after being beaten by Kyrgios.

But he said it was probably time for a rematch after all these years.

"I'm sure I can beat him now. I just had a bad game that time," he said. "I'm waiting for him."