Australian Open: Rafael Nadal defeats Kyrgios - and meets Dominic Thiem in the quarter-finals!
The world number one Rafael Nadal won the highly anticipated duel against Nick Kyrgios. The Spaniard won 6: 3, 3: 6, 7: 6 (6) and 7: 6 (4) and will meet Dominic Thiem in the quarter-finals.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Jan 27, 2020, 01:20 pm
Kyrgios, who ran into the arena with tears in his eyes in the shirt of the late basketball star Kobe Bryant and played well, did not get off to a good start. Many frame balls flew out, so Nadal made the break early to 3: 1, which he transported to the set lead.
Kyrgios also had to fight hard for his serve at the start of the second round, Nadal earned three break balls in the long first game; The Australian fended off one of them with a tweener (which was played quite safely). Nadal was briefly inattentive in a row, and Kyrgios came to a break out of nowhere. To date, he had only made seven points when he hit the top of the world rankings.
Kyrgios tried the tiebreak at 217 km / h on the second serve
The third sentence provided excitement. A breakball for Nadal at 3: 3 was fended off by Kyrgios with a forehand stop on the line, after which the bull from Manacor also had to make two payments, but was harmless. Kyrgios struggled into the tie-break. The first racket was due there at 1: 3 from Kyrgios' point of view, so he received a warning. Nevertheless, he got the mini break back to 4: 5, at 5: 5 he went with a second serve (at 217 km / h!) To Ace - and made a double mistake. Nadal tried a little safer with the set ball, but also unsuccessfully. At the second set point he benefited from a Kyrgios forehand into the net - and cheered vigorously.
Kyrgios bites again, but Nadal wins and praises
In set four, Nadal seemed unstoppable and also benefiting from Kyrgios' moderate fitness level - the Australian had had to fight Karen Khachanov the full distance the previous round . Nadal breached to zero to 2-1 and then put a smooth game to 3-1 - with a forehand line along the line. At 5: 4 for Nadal, however, the world rankings-23 bundled. again all powers and managed to balance.
In the tie-break everything stayed in line until 3: 3, but then a Kyrgios stop on the net edge - this time it was the preliminary decision. Nadal served after the victory.
"I was in control of the game at the beginning, but you never really have any control over Nick," said Nadal after the match to John McEnroe on the court. "If he plays as he does today, with this positive attitude, he gives up the sport good things with. I like the Nick Kyrgios we saw during this tournament. "
Nadal clearly ahead in the statistics
The statistics of the match gave a clearer picture than the result did. Nadal had 64 winners with only 27 unintentional mistakes (+37), with Kyrgios 50 winning strikes with 43 mistakes without need (+7). Nadal only weakened his break chances, he only used two out of nine. The fact that he got so many chances was also due to Kyrgios' poor result on second serve - he only made 37 percent of the points here. Kyrgios' return as a returner was also poor: he made only 12 percent of the points in set one when Nadal served - and only 19 percent overall over the entire match.
Even the picture, when the dots got longer, spoke clearly for Nadal. If it was over four strokes, "Rafa" made 82 points, Kyrgios only 44. In the short rallies (up to four strokes) Kyrgios was ahead with 80 to 65 points.
Thiem's next opponent of Nadal
Nadal will meet Dominic Thiem in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, who had given a gala screening against Gael Monfils. The Spaniard leads with 9: 4 in direct comparison; he won the only encounter between the two on hard court in 2018 at the US Open in the tiebreak of the fifth set.
"It will be difficult," said Nadal. "He is a good friend on the tour, he plays an incredibly hard ball."