@Sportshorn
In a match Nick Kyrgios seemingly had in hand, things quickly took a turn midway through the second set and Kevin Anderson capitalized. The veteran South African fought back and ended up taking out the No. 18 seed 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 .
Kyrgios played a strong first set which included the rarely seen four aces in succession in the eighth game. He then broke the South African at Love and went on to win the opening set.
After an early break in the second set, Kyrgios appeared to be marching along until he was suddenly broken for the first time in the tournament tying things at four. The 22 year-old began to unravel. A poor decision on a drop shot, three double faults and one smashed racquet later and Anderson had evened the match. Shortly after reaching his chair for the changeover, Kyrgios had one of his infamous meltdowns smashing his racquet multiple times against a bench. The chair umpire assessed him a point penalty at the start of the next set.
Anderson continued to play well in the third breaking Kyrgios to go up 3-1 after a missed easy forehand went into the net. That game seemed to deflate the Australian star who then went through the motions losing the set in just 31 minutes. Anderson won 93 percent of his first serve points and made just four mistakes.
In the fourth set, Kyrgios, who you don’t often see playing in a hat, attempted to get back into the match and had two straight games with 0-40 chances to break Anderson but was unable to do so. Instead it was Kyrgios who was broken again twice and then Anderson cruised to the finish line. Anderson finished with 49 winners in the match and he lost just nine points on his first serve.
“I definitely saw that I was in his head after winning that second set,” said Anderson. “But at the same time, you just really have to execute and win the points that matter. And you can see that if you can do that, it’s maybe going to make your life a little bit easier, and I think that’s something I did really well today. You know, while he was sort of getting into his own head and struggling with…his own battles, I didn’t give him a way to get back in the match. So it’s something that I knew I needed to do, and I thought I was able to execute that very well today.”
Nine doubles faults and 42 unforced errors made it a disappointing result for Kyrgios who had been battling through nagging hip and shoulder injuries.
“I mean, obviously, disappointing just to lose,” Kyrgios said ” but I haven’t — to be fair, I mean, my preparation for the clay court season hasn’t been great. I feel like I’ve way underdone coming into the French. You know, I thought he played pretty well, though. He was really aggressive off returns. I mean, it’s the type of match where I’m not going to get much rhythm. I was good for a set and a half.”
Anderson will now face Kyle Edmund in the third round.
