Australian pair Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis are still alive in their quest for a second grand slam title of the year after a hard-fought win in the first round of the US Open.
The Australian Open champions took down Hugo Gaston of France and Italian Lorenzo Musetti after dropping the first set at Louis Armstrong Stadium.
The eighth-seeded pair took two hours to complete the 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win, not helped by missing out on their first three match points.
With Kyrgios serving at 5-4, he got them to 40-0, before trying an underarm serve on their first shot at winning the match, but Musetti dug out the return and won the point.
On the next point, great hustle by Gaston forced a desperate Kyrgios tweener, but again the European pair stayed in the match.
They got back to deuce, before Kyrgios found his radar to serve out the match.
Meanwhile, in the men's singles, Australia lost three competitors, with James Duckworth, Alexei Popyrin and Jason Kubler all knocked out.
Duckworth will depart the US Open with a rankings boost, a healthy body and a big pay cheque but was left disappointed at not being able to drag 20th seed Dan Evans into a fifth set in a 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 second-round loss to the Briton.
"I started playing some alright tennis in the third and fourth sets. The first two were pretty bad," he said.
"Up a break in the fourth and was pretty unlucky the game I got broken."
Still, the 30-year-old is set to jump eight spots in the rankings to world number 75, almost certainly ensuring him direct entry to the first grand slam of 2022 in Melbourne.
The Sydneysider has endured 10 rounds of foot, elbow, shoulder and hip surgery to keep his career afloat.
"I take a lot of positives with my body. I was really happy with how my body was. I'm feeling way better than I was even a month ago," he said.
"Moving pretty well and my tennis slowly getting better. I feel like I'm getting better every week. It's positive. I've still got a bit to go but it's good stuff."
Popyrin lost to 14th-seeded Argentinian Diego Schwartzman 7-6 (7/3), 7-5, 7-6 (8/6) in a straight-sets loss that lasted almost four hours.
Popyrin actually hit more aces and winners than his opponent, but his unforced error count blew out to 69 over 3 hours and 42 minutes on court.
Kubler's match against 22nd seed Frances Tiafoe was a similar story, lasting more than three hours but ultimately ending in a 7-6 (7/3), 7-5, 7-6 (7/2) win for the American.
Max Purcell and Matt Ebden paired up in the men's doubles to down Andres Molteni and Santiago Gonzalez in three sets, Storm Sanders and Daria Saville both made it through with their partners in the women's doubles, while Samantha Stosur and Ajla Tomljanovic both bowed out.
ABC/AAP
