By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Nick Kyrgios roared through five straight games toppling world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-2 in a masterful Montreal performance.
Photo credit: Christopher Levy
The finish line loomed as near as the service line.
Nick Kyrgios streaked through it with the confidence of a man sprinting down hill.
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A dynamic Kyrgios roared through five straight games toppling world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-2 in a masterful Montreal performance today.
It is Kyrgios' second win over a reigning world No. 1 coming eight years after he defeated top-ranked Rafael Nadal in the 2014 Wimbledon fourth round.
"It was a tough match. I mean, I didn't go out there thinking that he was world No. 1," Kyrgios said. "We played each other three times. He's beaten me once, I've beaten him twice.
"I knew he was feeling confident so I had to come out there with a game style that wasn't going to give him too much rhythm. I served and volleyed pretty much every point. I've been serving well, volleying pretty well. I thought why not completely switch it up. I returned really well today, too. Had two set points in the first set. I was right there from the get-go. So I'm really happy with the way I performed."
Kyrgios' triumph came after American Tommy Paul upset second-seeded Carlos Alcaraz 6-7(4), 7-6(7), 6-3 in a wild day that saw the top two seeds both bow in gripping battles.
A red-hot Kyrgios scored his 14th victory in his last 15 matches, raising his 2022 record to 29-7 and solidifying his status as chaos creator no seed will want to see at the US Open later this month.
Both Los Cabos champion Medvedev and Washington, DC winner Kyrgios arrived on court coming off their first titles of the year.
In a clash of the world No. 1 and the world's most dangerous player, the explosive Kyrgios emptied the entire tactical playbook on Medvedev. Kyrgios mixed some serve-and-volley with some extended baseline exchanges, pulled out the underarm serve successfully and applied soft touch at net to drag the top seed out of his comfort zone around the baseline.
Superb shotmaking and that sledgehammer serve helped Kyrgios defeat Medvedev for the third time in four meetings, avenging his four-set defeat at the Australian Open in January. Kyrgios cracked 12 aces, won seven of his 15 service games at love and did not drop serve in a pulsating two-hour triumph.
The 37th-ranked Kyrgios can do damage from more areas of the court than the Australian Open runner-up and leveraged those skills at crunch time today.
Australian Open doubles champion Kyrgios won 32 of 48 trips to net compared to Medvedev's nine of 24 net-points won. Down the stretch, Kyrgios turned up the heat on serve stamping three successive love holds to put Medvedev away.
Kyrgios put Medvedev under pressure midway through the decider breaking for 3-2.
A fired-up Kyrgios cruised through a 55-second hold consolidating with command for 4-2.
Earlier in his career, Kyrgios was sometimes slagged off as an out-of-shape underachiever.
These days Kyrgios, who made history as the first man to sweep singles and doubles titles in Washington, DC on Sunday, is much fitter and playing smarter as a result.
The 27-year-old Aussie showed it. After that 55-second hold, Kyrgios downshifted into playing longer rallies in the following game. The explosive Kyrgios grinded Medvedev down luring him in with a short-angled shot and drawing a netted error to score is second straight break for 5-2.
A commanding Kyrgios closed at love then sent a message of love to his mom, Nil, who has been hospitalized recently.
"Be Strong Ma," Kyrgios wrote with a red heart on the courtside camera lens afterward.
Kyrgios has completely revitalized his career this year and maybe playing for a cause greater than himself—his family—is one reason for it.
"It's hard because even traveling now, my mum is in hospital at the moment, my dad hasn't been very well, my brother just had a baby, like I don't get to be there with my family when normal people would like to be with their family," Kyrgios told the media in Montreal. "It's hard being from Australia because we can't travel back and forth. There's a lot of things people don't see.
"They only see me exactly what you said, winning, losing, throwing a racquet, doing those things. They don't really understand the challenges that I face or what people on tour face, what's going on in their personal lives."
Kyrgios isn't the world's best player right now, but he's certainly one of the most entertaining.
The discipline and consistency once lacking in Kyrgios' game are not assets and the man who has admitted feeling isolated on Tour away from his family in the past is turning isolation into inspiration sustaining a winning roll. Kyrgios has reached the semifinals or better in five of his last six tournaments.
"There's so many little things that we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis and also try to beat players like Daniil Medvedev. It seems impossible," Kyrgios said. "It takes a lot of work. That's for sure."
Kyrgios is playing with a grit and gratitude creating a buzz among the crowds coming out to see him.
"I feel like I'm just playing for a lot more than myself now," Kyrgios said. "I look at today, I'm in Montreal, center court, one of the most beautiful courts in the world against Medvedev.
"I would be kind of selfish to not go out there and try to give the crowd a good performance, myself a good performance, my team a good performance, everyone watching.
"I feel like if I didn't show up today, I'd be doing a lot of people a disservice. That's what's sport needs, the sport needs matchups like this."