‘I was nice to myself’: Kyrgios survives injury scare, scrapes home in first match in 12 months

Nick Kyrgios survived an injury scare to eventually win his first match on tour in 344 days on Tuesday evening, and avoided the possibility of entering the Australian Open with just one lead up match under his belt.

As Australian colleagues Alex de Minaur and John Millman started Australia’s ATP Cup campaign on Rod Laver Arena, Kyrgios kicked off his summer with a 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) win against world No. 209 Alexandre Muller in the Murray River Open.

Nick Kyrgios overcame an injury scare to see off Alexandre Muller.Credit:Getty

Post match, Kyrgios admitted the situation he found himself in may have previously caused him to lose his cool.

“I’m actually happy the way I dealt with it and I just drew from experience. I was nice to myself,” he said.

“I was like, look, you lost a set, your first set back and you’re playing a guy who has nothing to lose really. He came out swinging.

“He actually played all right. I actually think that he would have beaten a fair few guys in the draw today. But yeah, just all around just believed, really.”

Kyrgios’ level immediately lifted. His biggest weapon – a 220km/h per hour first serve – was unplayable. Many of his service games lasted less than a minute.

In commentary, Wally Masur said Kyrgios’ serve was the second best he’s ever seen. Masur said he would only take the serve of 14-time grand slam winner Pete Sampras ahead of the Australian’s.

That may be the case but Sampras didn’t have anywhere near the same number of lapses in concentration as Kyrgios.

It was one of those archetypal lapses which almost cost Kyrgios the match.

After breaking Muller’s serve early in the second set, Kyrgios was cruising on his way to a decider. But he was broken as he was serving to level the match and had to break Muller again to send the contest to a deciding set.

Kyrgios started to complain about pain in his left knee halfway through the second set.

The 25-year-old wore a sleeve on his lower left leg and called for a medical timeout between the second and third sets.

“I’ve had knee problems a lot, but nothing
too major,” he said.

“Just wanted to get some hot cream and that
was it.”

The complaint was hindering the Australian through the third set and left him with little choice but to try shorten points even more than he typically does.

Kyrgios was creaming forehands but it didn’t seem to bother the French 23-year-old. He blocked balls back which would trigger errors from most players on tour and that seemed to frustrate the world No. 47.

Neither player could manage a break in the decider as the match went into a third-set tiebreak.

Kyrgios’ serve has guided him to a 58.9 per cent career tiebreak win percentage – a mark typically reserved for the world’s best – and he eventually wore down Muller to complete the comeback win.

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