Kyrgios crashes in Toronto first round
Ousted by Wimbledon junior champion in 3 sets
Nick Kyrgios turned in a patchy performance to exit the Toronto Masters 7- 6 ( 7/ 2), 3- 6, 6- 3 on Monday at the hands of Wimbledon junior champion Denis Shapovalov. The 17- year- old Canadian set up a match point with his 12th ace, then calmly closed out the upset over the 19th- ranked Australian. In his first match since losing to eventual champion Andy Murray in the Wimbledon fourth round, Kyrgios at times showed little interest in his on- court duties, serving at lightning speed with only a few seconds between points. During one changeover, he was heard muttering to himself in dissatisfaction.
“Not great, obviously,” said Kyrgios, who was troubled by a sore knee but still unhappy with his lethargic showing. “I don’t know. I just didn’t play great.”
The Australian 11th seed somehow struck an ace as his racquet flew from his hand on one serve, but his 13 aces were outnumbered by 18 double faults.
“I’m not going to tell you what I did or didn’t do to prepare for this match. I just played pretty bad, but he played great and he earned it,” he said.
“Obviously he was excited playing in front of his home crowd. I know what it feels like to come off one of your biggest junior results and then play in one of your home tournaments.”
Shapovalov, playing in only his second ATP event, will take on former top- 10 contender Grigor Dimitrov, v, who is trying to claw his wayw back inn what has been a disappoint disappointing season. n. The Bulgarian re reached the he second round with a 5- 7, 7- 6 ( 7/ 5), 6- 4 win over Yuichi hi Sugita. Th Three other er
se seeds ad-d- vanced, with No. 9 John Isner coming back to eliminate Dudi Sela 4- 6, 6- 3, 6- 2.
Australian 12th seed Bernard Tomic beat Alejandro Gonzalez 6- 4, 7- 6 ( 7/ 0) while Jack Sock, the No. 16, defeated Denis Kudla 6- 2, 6- 2.
Dimitrov, ranked 48th, got out of danger against Sugita after trailing a set and a break.
Dimitrov, who lost six straight matches prior to Wimbledon, improved to 21- 16 in 2016.
“It was a very tough match, I didn’t play my best tennis but I got through. It was great to hear some Bulgarian voices in the crowd when I got down on myself,” he said.
Dimitrov said he finally turned the corner in the match while trailing 4- 1 in the second- set tiebreaker, standing just a handful of points from a first- round exit. The Bulgarian won a lob- to- lob exchange with the 107th- ranked Sugita, coming through to eventually level the set and take on new life in the third. Borna Coric won an all- Croatian clash as he beat Ivan Dodig 5- 7, 6- 4, 6- 2. South African Kevin Anderson ended a losing streak of three consecutive opening matches, downing Serb Viktor Troicki 7- 6 ( 7/ 4), 6- 3. Canadian Steven Diez surprised Briton Kyle Edmund 3- 6, 6- 3, 6- 2. The wild- card entry will play Tomic.