Underarm serves, smashed rackets and swearing — Nick Kyrgios is back
“That is the best tennis has sounded since the pandemic.” So said Jim Courier, the on-court interviewer, as he spoke to Nick Kyrgios at the end of an electric five-setter that has ignited the Australian Open.
Kyrgios saved two match points against Ugo Humbert, the 29th seed from France, before closing out a 5-7, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 6-4 victory with an unreturned serve. He immediately fell to his knees with his head pressed against the blue surface of the court, while the thousands of fans on John Cain Arena gave him a hysterical standing ovation.
Even Kyrgios, a man who specialises in topsy-turvy tennis, had to admit that “That is one of the craziest matches I’ve ever played.” In what felt like a greatest-hits compilation from his career, he deployed underarm serves and unnecessary tweeners, and suffered repeated code violations. But he still somehow managed to see out this 3hr 25min epic in style.
The evening’s entertainment had begun with Kyrgios missing a couple of opportunities to break Humbert’s left-handed serve in the first set, and then giving up a tame break of his own to fall behind. He was chuntering to himself and flexing his sore knee, in a manner that made one suspect a fast and anti-climactic conclusion.
But the delirious support of the fans kept him going, even when he was docked a point by umpire Marijana Veljovic for a combination of racket-smashing and audible obscenities. In truth, Kyrgios was fortunate not to suffer further penalties as he became irate with Veljovic over a series of dubious let calls against his 135mph serves.
The moment of truth arrived when Humbert held two match points while serving at 5-4 in the fourth set. Kyrgios dealt with them brilliantly, making deep returns with his backhand both times. On the first, he followed up with a net rush that forced Humbert into an error; on the second, it was Humbert who came forward only for Kyrgios to beat him with a delicately angled pass. As the crowd exploded, he sauntered across the baseline shaking his head and grinning to himself in disbelief.
“Honestly, if you were in my head, I was just thinking about all the s--- I was going to cop if I lost that match,” Kyrgios told Courier afterwards. “I don't know how I did that. I'm lost for words.
“He's a heck of a player. Think he got one of the most improved players last year, you can see why. The one thing I had him on right now is experience. I've just drawn from experience so much on this court. I put my head down and tried to make him play.
“If you were inside my head, there were some dark thoughts in there,” added Kyrgios, who also explained that he had been inspired by seeing his close friend, the often injury-wracked Thanasi Kokkinakis, beat Kwon Soon-woo on Tuesday.
“To see him go through what he [Kokkinakis] went through and to get back healthy and finally play the tennis he is capable of, that is amazing to see,” said Kyrgios, who will meet third seed Dominic Thiem in Friday’s third-round match. “He had tears in his eyes. I'm so proud of that kid. He was going to give up, he stayed with it. You know, I was thinking about him a little bit out here as well. That was so special to him and it kept me going a little bit.”
Elsewhere, World No 1 Novak Djokovic was made to look human for a few games by Frances Tiafoe overnight, and even dropped a set – a rarity for him in these early rounds of the Australian Open.
In the last four years of major tennis, this was only the sixth set Djokovic had dropped in 28 appearances before reaching the third round – which is the first time a seeded player can meet another seed.
It was a hot and humid night in Melbourne – conditions that Djokovic tends not to enjoy – and the often flashy Tiafoe kept up an unexpected level of accuracy. In the second set of Djokovic’s 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-3 victory, Tiafoe delivered excellent statistics of 17 winners as against only 11 unforced errors.
At 23 years old, the American has been a top-30 player before, and reached the quarter-finals of this event in 2019, but his ranking has dropped back to No 64 after a loss of focus last year.
“He pushed me to the very limit I think,” said Djokovic, after regrouping to earn a third-round meeting with another young American, 27th seed Taylor Fritz.
“Second and the third set were really super close. But just overall challenging conditions. I think it was very hot. We had long exchanges. His backhand was very solid, very consistent, not too many errors.
“Of course, I was at times not feeling my timing as well as I normally am. Credit to him. I think he has managed to come out with a great performance and quality of tennis. He put me in a difficult spot.”
Djokovic must have been grateful for the extra insurance of the best-of-five-set format. On the women’s side, there is always more volatility, and three former slam champions were eliminated overnight.
The most unusual case surrounded Venus Williams, the five-time Wimbledon champion, who is still forging on at the age of 40. Williams came into her match against Italy’s Sara Errani with heavy strapping on her knee, which appeared to inhibit her movement, and was then reduced to hobbling after turning her ankle late in the first set.
Unusually, Williams was forced to claim back-to-back medical time-outs on the two separate injuries. She teared up at one point as the pain became too much, but refused to walk off the court, fighting on instead to the end of her 6-1, 6-0 defeat. It was a hugely courageous display from a woman who has stoically combined elite sport with an auto-immune condition – Sjogren’s Syndrome – for at least a decade now.
Venus’s sister Serena was unruffled by her second-round opponent Nina Stojanovic, cruising through by a 6-3, 6-0 margin, but there were defeats for the 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu – who is returning to the sport after a 467-day absence caused by a serious knee injury – and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
Andreescu was up against the uniquely awkward Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan, who sliced and diced her way to a 6-3, 6-2 victory. Kvitova, meanwhile, took on Romania’s Sorana Cirstea, one of the 72 players who wound up serving a 14-day hard quarantine because of a positive Covid test on their flight into Melbourne.
After her 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 upset win, Cirstea explained that last year’s breaks in the tennis calendar had reminded her “how much I love tennis and competing. I was grateful to play when I came back, played with much more joy, understanding that there are much more important things in life".
