Kyrgios-Tsitsipas: the Australian wins a spectacular duel that turns into a drama

Kyrgios does the show, and wins

Nick Kyrgios is on the rise in this Wimbledon. After a difficult first round for him, he has since raised his level of play to show the full extent of his talent. In order to continue his good season on grass, he had to face a big player yesterday, in the person of the 5th world player, Stefanos Tsitsipas. Although it was not played on Centre Court, in favour of the match between Nadal and Sonego (which Nadal won in three sets), this Aussie-Greek duel was the main attraction and lived up to its promise. Nick Kyrgios, displaying a level commensurate with his talent, dominated an excellent Tsitsipas in four sets (6-7, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6) in a spectacular battle with 118 winners on the menu : forehand mines, backhand models, exceptional volleys and a few other genius shots to season the match.

First set: Kyrgios imposes a hellish pace on his serve, leaving no respite for his opponent between points, but Tsitsipas has it in the bag and also leads the battle at a frenetic pace. The Australian gets annoyed and lets the tiebreak slip through the hands of the Greek who then manages his match perfectly. 

In the second set, Nick Kyrgios did not let himself be defeated and maintained this crazy pace. This time, he finds the break and takes the Greek’s serve at the best possible moment, at 5-4 with an exceptional defensive forehand. After that, Tsitsipas starts to lose his composure.

In the next set, the Australian turned the match on its side, notably thanks to his quality of serve (77% of first ball), on which he will leave only 6 small points to the Greek. Kyrgios took Tsitsipas’ serve at the beginning of the set and kept it until the end of the set, 6 games to 3.

Fourth and final set: the height of entertainment. The two players go back and forth, unleashing a 41 winners avalanche. Despite 6 break points for Kyrgios and 4 for Tsitsipas, including 1 set point, all are saved by both players. The rest is a high level tie-break that the Australian wins 9 points to 7. Second match point : Kyrgios drops a drop shot in the calmest of moods, which the Greek cannot straighten out. He joins American Nakashima in the last eight.

 Electric duel

A match point that ended on a caricature of the Australian’s game, and in a special atmosphere. A brief handshake between the two men at the end of a spicy match. A wild climate that the two men could not help but envenom.

And while Kyrgios started off with some signature shots, including a tweener spoon serve, it was his altercations with the referee and linesmen (following a judging error) that started the hostilities. Kyrgios lost the match during the tie-break of the first set and could no longer restrain himself from grumbling between points. 

The match definitely heated up at the end of the second set, during which Kyrgios continued to grumble without losing his level of play, which allowed him to put this defensive slice out of reach of the Greek to win the set. Mixed with the behaviour of the Australian, this outcome did not please Tsitsipas, who cracked and sent a ball of anger into the crowd. Kyrgios did not miss the opportunity to add fuel to the fire and asked for the Greek to be disqualified. Tsitsipas, having lost the support of a large part of the crowd, was not satisfied and started firing his passing-shots into Nick Kyrgios as soon as the two were at the net. The Australian probably didn’t like it : two of his shots hit the net, fortunately landing in the Greek’s half of the court where he can’t do anything and Kyrgios starts to provoke with celebrations to fire up the crowd, whereas normally players apologise for this kind of shots. Another Tsitsipas bloodbath following a Kyrgios spoon serve sealed the third set. With the crowd once again cheering every point of the two opponents, the atmosphere on the court was electric until the end of the match. 

When two players with a volcanic temperament clash, the chances of sparks flying are sometimes very high, and that was the case yesterday.

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