Nick Kyrgios is into the US Open quarter-finals after a tough, four-set win over defending champion Daniil Medvedev.
In a fiery encounter, Kyrgios risked being defaulted and overcame a running verbal battle with the chair umpire and a potentially catastrophic play before downing the world No.1 7-6 (13-11) 3-6 6-3 6-2 on Monday morning (Australian time).
The win puts the Wimbledon runner-up into his first US Open quarter-final, where he will take on another Russian, Karen Khachanov, on Wednesday morning as he chases a maiden grand slam singles title.
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Kyrgios received a standing ovation from the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd after winning a gruelling opening-set tiebreak.
But the 27-year-old came close to throwing away his advantage with a bizarre move in the third set.
After levelling the match at one set each, Medvedev received an extraordinary, possibly unprecedented, gift from Kyrgios.
Kyrgios appeared to have earned a break point in the second game of the third set, when Medvedev couldn’t return a ball, but ran around the net celebrating and hit the ball away for a mock winner.
Umpire Eva Asderaki-Moore rightly awarded the point to Medvedev because the Russian’s shot, while clearly not going over the net, was “still in play”.
“I thought it was legal,” Kyrgios said, shaking off the blunder, somewhat uncharacteristically, before breaking Medvedev on his next service game to claim a 3-1 lead.
Kyrgios earlier engaged in an unnecessary, angry exchange with Greek Asderaki-Moore, accusing her of starting the shot clock apparently too early.
“You are the only umpire that I’ve a problem in this matter,” he fired at her. “Use your common sense. Just use it a little bit.”
After regaining his cool and fighting off three set points, Kyrgios brought up a fourth of his own with an exquisite backhand drop shot that almost spun back over onto his side of the net.
It was probably the shot of the entire match and he duly nabbed the set when Medvedev sent a forehand wide after 63 minutes of quality tennis.
But it wasn’t long before tensions really boiled over.
Medvedev was clearly agitated by Kyrgios’ behaviour, and that of his entourage.
At one point he fumed at the umpire for not warning Kyrgios after the Australian, frustrated at going down an early break in the second set, went within centimetres of hitting a ball into the first row of the stands.
Medvedev then threatened to quit if someone from Kyrgios’s courtside entourage wasn’t ejected for disrupting the top seed between his first and second serves.
“They cannot do it,” Medvedev raged. “If they do it a second time, I am not playing they’re out, until somebody is out.”
The win was the second time Kyrgios has defeated Medvedev in three weeks.
Ajla Tomljanovic, who ended the career of Serena Williams last week, was also playing her fourth-round match on Monday against in-form Russian Liudmila Samsonova, striving to give Australia two quarter-finalists in New York for the first time this century.
-with AAP
