While Madrid Open would serve as Wawrinka’s training ground to defend his title at the French Open, the 31-year-old Swiss will surely be tested in a tournament where Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Nadal are the top favorites. Kyrgios saved two break points at 1-2, 30/40 and at 3-4, 30/40 in the first set.
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Both opponents, though, along with everyone else in the draw, will recognise that Kyrgios is proving to be one of the most unsafe #NextGen players on the tour: This was his eighth top-10 win, not forgetting in particular that he beat Roger Federer in three tie-break sets at this very stage past year. Both these players are very unpredictable, vacillating between brilliance and its opposite from day to day, and they have never really played a match with both of them feeling their best (their one completed encounter, at Queen’s in 2015, was also accompanied by injury and illness concerns for Kyrgios).
Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, celebrating her 27th birthday, reached the women’s final by beating American qualifier Louisa Chirico 6-1, 6-1 in less than an hour.
Murray had to play under a closed roof at the “Magic Box” center court because of rain. It was different conditions playing under the roof.
Stanislas Wawrinka in action against Nick Kyrgios of Australia at the Madrid Open. The interval didn’t help the Spaniard, who cruised in the first set but saw the 35th-ranked Portuguese rally back in the second.
Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo was among those watching Nadal play. At the Canada Masters in Montreal last August, Kyrgios made the now-infamous “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend, sorry to tell you that mate” comment during his three-set match against Wawrinka, which ended when Wawrinka retired trailing 7-6(8), 3-6, 0-4.
“I thought I returned better in the third set”. I can not think of past year.
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It has been a common fact that the Australians have had their struggles with clay over the years and even though they have had fighting players like Sam Stosur and Lleyton Hewitt providing a whiff of hope at some times, they still have not been able to truly establish a foot hold on the dirt. There are things in my game that are much better than at this stage past year. “I need to learn from the match that I played against him and hopefully have a good performance tomorrow”.
