Kyrgios says ball girl hit by serve of 135mph ‘took it like a champ’
Australian shows softer side in 42-ace victory Nadal and Djokovic ease through in straight sets
In an increasingly uncertain world, it is reassuring to know that there are some things we can still rely on.
One of them is that a match involving Nick Kyrgios will throw up some sort of zany incident. This is a man who, only two weeks ago at Queen’s, veered from the sublime of twice serving 32 aces in a match to the ridiculous of mimicking a sexual act with a water bottle.
Yesterday, Kyrgios was entirely blameless for this moment of intrigue, which arrived towards the end of his 7-6, 7-6, 6-7, 6-3 win over Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin.
As he closed in on victory, Kyrgios slammed down a 135mph serve that struck a ball girl on an arm. She had to be led off the court in tears, though not before she had impressed Kyrgios with her bravery. “It was tough,” said Kyrgios, who asked the girl a number of times if she was all right.
“Originally when I heard the sound, I thought it hit the scoreboard. Then I realised it was her arm. She took it like a champ, though. I would have been crying.”
The match itself was a serve-dominated affair, with Kyrgios banging down 42 aces but struggling for rhythm against the unconventional world No92.
Should Kyrgios win his next match, then an even more unpredictable opponent could await in the third round: fellow Australian Bernard Tomic. Tomic’s ranking plummeted to outside the top 200 earlier this year after an existential crisis that included an appearance on the Australian I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here, but he was a straight-sets winner yesterday against Hubert Hurkacz.
Rafael Nadal cruised through his first-round match 6-3, 6-3, 6-2 against the diminutive Israeli Dudi Sela. After his win, Nadal was pressed on whether he would be in favour of Wimbledon bringing in a shot clock to monitor how long players take between points. Despite being one of the players who most regularly exceeds the 25-second rule at grand-slams, Nadal said he would cope.
Novak Djokovic expressed his frustration that the ATP Player Council had not been consulted about the US Open introducing a shot clock, after his 6-3, 6-1,
6-2 win over the big-serving American Tennys Sandgren.
Elsewhere, there were a few high-profile casualties in the men’s draw yesterday, as Dominic Thiem, David Goffin and Jack Sock suffered shock defeats. Plagued by what appeared to be a back injury, Thiem retired hurt trailing the 2006 semi-finalist Marcos Baghdatis 4-6, 5-7, 0-2. No 10 seed Goffin was thumped 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 by the Australian Matt Ebden, while the No 18 seed Sock threw away a two-sets lead to lose 6-7, 6-7, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2 to Italy’s world No 81 Matteo Berrettini. Sock could also face a fine for leaving without speaking to the media.
By contrast, there were easy wins for the fourth and fifth seeds, Alexander Zverev and Juan Martin del Potro. Zverev hammered Australia’s James Duckworth 7-5, 6-2, 6-0, while Del Potro eased past Peter Gojowczyk 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.