Switched on and dangerous
Nick Kyrgios feels he can “cause an uproar” at Wimbledon and the Australian No.15 seed is certainly acting like it.
With a devastating serve and a power game to back it up, Kyrgios is a player no one wants to face on the grass and if his first two matches are any indication, he’ll be incredibly tough to beat at the All England Club this Fortnight.
Kyrgios notched his seventh win of his grass season on Thursday and needed just 96 minutes to do it.
Taking on Dutch veteran Robin Haase, a player he described as “savvy” ahead of their showdown, Kyrgios posted a 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 win to move into the third round at Wimbledon, for the fourth time in five appearances and the 11th time at a Grand Slam overall.
He admitted: "I came out really good. The first two sets, I was pretty impressed with my performance. Obviously third set got a bit rocky. I lost my serve, lost focus."
A focused Kyrgios is arguably the scariest form of Kyrgios, and the 23-year-old admits he is in a much better mental state this year compared to 12 months ago. At Wimbledon last year, he retired with a hip injury after trailing Pierre-Hugues Herbert by two sets in the first round.
In 2016, he battled past three seasoned grass court magicians before showing up dejected and listless against Andy Murray in the fourth round. He bowed in straight sets.
But this year Kyrgios looks and sounds different.
“I feel like I'm one of the guys that can cause a bit of an uproar at this event. We'll see how it goes,” he said after his opening round win over Denis Istomin.
Kyrgios's assessment found favour with Haase, who said: "I felt that he gave me a lot of pressure, he was serving incredible, he was really solid throughout the match, doing not many crazy things - I mean that's also part of his game, that makes him as good as he is, so I think he will always have to keep it - but it's always a matter of how much?"
With a high-risk high-reward game, Kyrgios unleashed 42 winners against Haase, including 19 aces. But as someone who never holds back on his second serve, Kyrgios tallied nine double faults during the match.
Up until the opening game of the third set, Kyrgios hadn’t faced a break point on his serve. He saved two break points but Haase finally broke Kyrgios’ deadly shot on his third opportunity to level the third set for one-all. They exchanged breaks one more time that set but Kyrgios stepped up in game 11, to get the decisive break and wrap up the victory.
He finished the contest with a 91 per cent success rate on his first-serve points, 55 per cent on his second.
But the match did not go without a glitch. A dispute over a foot fault call against Kyrgios saw chair umpire James Keothavong step down to the court to show the Aussie the right positioning for his foot when serving.
That advice will surely come in handy.
