A smile from Nick Kyrgios during a tense deciding-set tiebreak today was the best news of all for an Australian Davis Cup team heading to Brisbane for next week’s tie against the United States.
Kyrgios kept his composure in a three-set win over Ivo Karlovic at the ATP Miami tournament when the often volatile Australian was frustrated by the big-hitting style of his opponent.
The Australian No. 1 even raised a smile to a remark from a spectator after winning the first point of the third-set tiebreak before closing out his tense third-round match against Karlovic 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-2).
After throwing his racquet at his chair in frustration at losing the second set, the in-form Kyrgios kept a rein on his concentration against Karlovic, who kept saving service games under pressure.
Kyrgios will travel to Brisbane with a team again missing Bernard Tomic, knowing Australia’s most likely route to victory is for him to win both singles matches as the Cup tie’s highest-ranked player.
The 21-year-old last week credited the Australian Davis Cup team for helping him out of a “dark place’’ following his Australian Open exit in January.
“Mentally I think I’m in a really good spot — you can tell by the way I’m competing,’’ Kyrgios told reporters in Miami after booking a fourth-round match against world No. 12 David Goffin, to be played on Wednesday morning (Australian time).
“I’ve got Davis Cup next week and then I have a week off. I’m not trying to get too far ahead of myself.
“I’ve been playing really well the last couple of weeks and I’m backing myself under pressure.’’
Hewitt felt Kyrgios was in the right place to “get the job done” for Australia.
“Nick’s obviously our No. 1 player, and we’ll be relying on him heavily to get us through the tie,” Hewitt said.
Tomic was unavailable for Australia’s first-round win in February and he has not won a match since in a five-tournament run in which he has also been troubled by a back injury.
In Tomic’s extended absence, Australia’s No. 2 Jordan Thompson, ranked No. 79, would do well to win either of his matches against an American team likely to bring four top-30 singles players to the April 7-9 quarter-final at Pat Rafter Arena.
Australia will need John Peers and Sam Groth to win the doubles.
The US is also expected to name an unchanged team, with world No. 17 Jack Sock their top-ranked player, sitting just one place behind Kyrgios.
John Isner, Sam Querry and Steve Johnson are expected to be the other three US players.
Australian players will start to arrive in Brisbane late this week.
Thompson won both his singles matches in his Cup debut against the Czech Republic last month in Melbourne.
“He did everything that was asked of him at the last tie in Kooyong,” Hewitt said of Thompson.
“He was the underdog in the first match on court against the Czech Republic’s No. 1 player, but he handled it amazingly well. A quarter-final against the States will be another step up, but I’ve got full confidence in him.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment