Nick Kyrgios’ superb summer continues apace as the Australian delivered another nerveless performance on the biggest stage to beat world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev at the Canadian Open.
It was a day that saw both the top seed and second seed Carlos Alcaraz dumped out of the tournament in Montreal, and Kyrgios was just as impressive in his 6-7(1) 6-4 6-2 victory as Tommy Paul had been in knocking out the young Spaniard.
It was the latest step in Kyrgios’ remarkable resurgence – the Australian was ranked 137 as recently as February – after his run to the Wimbledon final in July and his title win at last week’s Citi Open in Washington.
The question now will be whether he can top all that by winning the US Open, which begins in New York later this month.
Speaking afterwards, Kyrgios said: “This is the fourth meeting we’ve had and I’ve had some success against him [Medvedev] in the past.
“But he’s beaten me before [as well]. I feel like we know each other’s games well.
“I’m not the type of player that goes into this match looking at rankings or anything like that, it’s just who I’m playing and what kind of ball they’re giving me.
“I had a very clean objective of how I was going to play, a lot of serve-and-volley, a lot of aggressive play from the back.
“I executed better than he did, that’s all it comes down to.
“He won the first set and I feel like I had opportunities there as well, so hopefully I can just keep this rolling.”
As one might have expected in a meeting between Kyrgios and Medvedev, the serve dominated from the outset at the IGA Stadium with games speeding by as neither was able to put many balls in play on the return.
Until 4-5 that was, when Kyrgios had two break – and set – points on the Medvedev serve, in by far the longest game of the match encompassing five deuces.
The world No. 1 eventually pulled through, and two holds thereafter took it into a tie-break, which was probably about right on the balance of play.
Kyrgios, so unruffled thoughout the majority of the set, was suddenly chuntering to himself and was also grimacing while stretching out his back, in a possible sign of a lingering injury.
Medvedev showed no mercy to move 6-1 ahead, at which point Kyrgios slammed a ball out of the stadium, incurring a code violation.
He clawed back the ensuing point but dumped a volley in the net on the next to give Medvedev the opener.
The crowd might have wondered which Kyrgios they would see at the start of the second – and it turned out to be a reinvigorated version, as the Australian broke Medvedev in the first game, thanks chiefly to a brilliant forehand pass.
A hold followed to give him a headstart in the set, and he consolidated that lead to stride out to 4-2 in front.
Kyrgios’ mix of serve-volleying, underarm serves and drop shots were confounding Medvedev, with the Russian’s furrowed brow by now a regular feature.
And the world No. 1 was unable to locate the answers he needed in the closing games of the set, as Kyrgios brought up two set points at 5-4 – and took it on his second.
To a decider it went, and Kyrgios was finding a level perhaps even he didn’t know he had, matching Medvedev in long baseline rallies whilst also mounting a number of successful forays to the net.
And at 2-2 he made his move, breaking his 26-year-old adversary – and then backing it up with a convincing hold to love.
One break then became two as the errors began to fly off the Medvedev racket, and Kyrgios served it out – again to love – to take one of the finest wins of his career, and his second against a world No. 1.
