ATP Washington: 5 match points saved! Nick Kyrgios with willpower in the semifinals
Nick Kyrgios reached the semifinals at the ATP 500 event in Washington after a big fight. The top seeded Andrey Rublev also bought his ticket for the semi-finals on Saturday night (CET).
by Michael Rothschädl
last edit: Aug 06, 2022, 07:55 am
The fans at the ATP 500 event in Washington - even if there weren't many over a long stretch of the tournament so far - really got their money's worth on Friday. Not only the quarter-finals of the CIti Open were on the program on Saturday night (CET), the round of 16 also had to be played to the end after the weather-related cancellation on Thursday.
So Andrey Rublev and Nick Kyrgios - the remaining title aspirants at the ATP 500 event - had the dubious pleasure of having to work a double shift. And solved this task perfectly. Rublev initially kept his nerve in a hard-fought match against serve-and-volley specialist Maxime Cressy - and then didn't give surprise man John Jeffrey Wolf the slightest chance.
Kyrgios with battle of nerves
Nick Kyrgios had to work far harder. Although the Australian closed the sack in an impressive manner with four wins in a row at the end of the round of 16 duel with Reilly Opelka , the Wimbledon finalist had to stretch in the quarter-finals against Frances Tiafoe. And it did. The American Tiafoe found five match balls in the tie-break of the second set, Kyrgios knew how to thwart all of them. With 6: 7 (5), 7: 6 (12) and 6: 2, the man from Canberra finally booked his ticket for the semi-finals.
In this, both Kyrgios and Rublev meet men who were not fully expected at this stage of the tournament: Rublev will face Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka on Saturday, who continued his run with a hard-fought three-set win over Dan Evans . Nick Kyrgios, in turn, meets Mikael Ymer, who surprisingly defeated Sebastian Korda.