In a sort of dejà-vu of Acapulco’s quarter-finals, in which the Aussie won, in Indian Wells round of 16 Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios face each other to play against the winner of Federer-Nadal in the quarter-finals of the Californian Masters’ 1000.
The match starts in a bad way for Djokovic, who immediately goes down 0-30 and gets broken after a long-rally on the score of 30-40. Kyrgios then confirms the break. In the third game Nole looks absent-minded, hitting some backhand with the forehand side of the racquet, but, after cancelling a break-point, holds his serve. Kyrgios, although, keeps being astonishing with his serve and secures a 3-1 lead. In the fifth game something funny happens: Kyrgios calls three consecutive Hawk-Eye Challenges, being right in two of them and as it often occurs the Australian player begins being polemical towards the umpire. In the sixth game Kyrgios scores 3 aces and an unreturned service, the score becomes of 4-2 for Nick. In the seventh game Djokovic, thanks to an unreturned serve, saves a break-point and then reaches the 3-4. The match keeps being on serve until the end of the set, which sees Kyrgios winning 6-4 recovering from 15-30 in the tenth game and scoring an ace on the concluding point and Djokovic smashing his racquet at the end of the set.
The second set is much more balanced. None of the players reaches break point until the eleventh game and both of them display if not their best, a very high level of tennis. There are just a few 15-30 and 30-30, but in these occasions the player on serve play consistently and doesn’t get broken. Τhe set, though, sees its first break-points, as already said, in the eleventh game, with Djokovic leaving a 30-40 and then the advantage to Kyrgios; in the first break point Djokovic goes to the net and reaches the deuce, in the second chance it is Kyrgios who gets to the net, but Djokovic hits a passing shot on the line; eventually, Djokovic holds his serve. The second set ends in a tie-break. Kyrgios immediately gets a mini-break of advantage in a long rally in the first point, hits a second serve ace with the score being 3-2 in his advantage and then reaches a 6-2 lead, finally beating Djokovic 7-3 in the tie-break.
“I felt like in Acapulco the conditions were a lot different. So I knew I had serve well again today,” said Kyrgios following his win.
“He’s such a great player and professional and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy at all.
“I’m just in a good space mentally. I’m really happy, I’m trying really hard for every point and obviously I’m serving at a really high level.”
Match highlights (watch from 42 seconds in)
Giovanni Vianello
