Murray, who led Britain to their first Davis Cup triumph in 79 years just over a month ago, stormed past France’s Kenny de Schepper in his opening match of the mixed teams event on Monday, but did not seem to be at his best against Kyrgios.
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Heather Watson must beat Daria Gavrilova to keep Great Britain alive against Australia Green.
Gavrilova was up 5-3 in the third set, but the naturalised Australian lost the last four games.
In other first-round matches Sunday, Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky, at No. 5, became the first seeded player eliminated when she was beaten by Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a 2013 finalist in Brisbane, 6-2, 6-1.
Kyrgios said it would be a “very, very bad thing” if he was pitted against his mentor in his final Australian Open.
“I just played big and backed myself”.
“I’ll be fine. No problem”. Murray entered the match holding a 4-0 win-loss record over Kyrgios.
They may be spending more time together on the practice court, but Nick Kyrgios doesn’t want to meet Lleyton Hewitt at Rod Laver Arena.
Three of those wins came in grand slams in 2015, including their quarterfinal showdown at the Australian Open.
“One hundred per cent he wanted to win that tonight”.
“I think it’s going to be risky for anyone who does run into Lleyton”, Kyrgios told Melbourne radio station RSN on Wednesday.
Kyrgios lost the game, but he saved a break point shortly after before going on to win the match in a tie-break.
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