Kyrgios and surprise Brit earn record Djokovic and Nadal can’t achieve

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Nick Kyrgios has continued his career-best season at this week’s Japan Open, where he is through to his ninth quarter-final of 2022. After a strong start at his first tournament in a month, it means Kyrgios keeps up a record for the year that only British No 4 Jack Draper has been able to match. The pair have won at least one match at every tournament, something the likes of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal have been unable to achieve.

Kyrgios has enjoyed the best year of his career, starting the season by winning the Australian Open men’s doubles title with Thanasi Kokkinakis before he later reached his maiden Grand Slam final in singles at Wimbledon. The 27-year-old also picked up his seventh career singles title in Washington, and is hoping to get number eight in Tokyo this week. 

The world No 20 took a short break after last month’s US Open but has made a winning return at the Japan Open, defeating Tseng Chun-hsin for the loss of just four games on Tuesday before coming from a set down to advance to the quarter-finals on Thursday with a 2-6 6-3 6-3 win over Kamil Majchrzak.

By winning his opening matches in Tokyo, Kyrgios remains one of just two players to have won at least one match in every single tournament they have contested in 2022, with none other than young British star Draper being the other man to achieve the feat.

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And the likes of Djokovic and Nadal will be unable to match Kyrgios and Draper, having already suffered one first-round defeat each this year. The Serb has been in a unique position in 2022, currently playing just his ninth tournament of the year with his unvaccinated status forcing him to miss large parts of the season.

Djokovic was defeated by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in his opening match at the Monte Carlo Masters back in April, which was just his second tournament of the season after a quarter-final run at the Dubai Championships in February. Meanwhile, Nadal lost his opening match at the Cincinnati Masters in August.

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The tournament marked the world No 2’s first since he pulled out of Wimbledon with a 7mm abdomen tear ahead of his semi-final against Kyrgios. But he went down to the then-world No 152 who ended up winning the tournament and has since climbed to No 28 in the world as he continues his comeback from a shoulder surgery.

As for Kyrgios, the Australian looks set to keep up his streak if his current form is anything to go by. After Tokyo, he will play the Basel ATP 500 and the Paris Masters 1000 before the end of the season, and has been full of fighting talk. “I’m expecting some big things from myself for the rest of the year,” he said after his first-round win in Japan.

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