Nick Kyrgios may be one of tennis’ most entertaining players, and his cheeky antics were not spared during round two of Wimbledon.
The 26-year-old went up against Italy’s Gianluca Mager, beating him 7-6 (9/7), 6-4, 6-4, but it was not exactly a walk in the park.
Mager applied great pressure in the first set and it looked as though Kyrgios was still feeling a little fatigued from his five-setter against Ugo Humbert.
The Italian was gaining momentum, making all the right plays and seemed as though he was ready to win the set when he took a mini-break in the opening set tie-break.
Kyrgios on the other hand could be heard saying, “I’m still so tired from the last one” early on in the match.
Kyrgios came back swinging from the mini-break back and at 7-7, returning Mager’s serve with a hard forehand taking the win.
The Aussie fixture went on to register 29 aces and 48 winners to his 11 unforced errors.
In the third set, Kyrgios managed to reach match point and even asked a woman in the stands where he should serve the final shot and had the spectators laughing.
He went on to win the point and secure his place into the third round.
READ MORE: Wimbledon: Kyrgios knocks out Humbert despite slip, Sakkari’s game gets suspended
Fellow Australian tennis player Ash Barty also etched her name in the third round fixture, ending on a fairly straightforward 6-4, 6-3 win over Russian World No. 89 Anna Blinkova.
Barty had little knowledge of her opponent’s gameplay which frazzled her ever so slightly, but her own talent managed to secure the victory.
“A few points here or there and it could’ve been a different story,” Barty said in a post match interview.
Unfortunately Greece has no horses left in the race, as Maria Sakkari was knocked out by unseeded American Shelby Rodgers.
Sakkari had a promising start to Wimbledon, sweeping through Dutch opponent Arantxa Rus to take the win in just 49 minutes ending on 6-1, 6-1 in the first round. This time, she wasn’t quite on the ball.
The two competitors returned to the court after their match was postponed due to low light began impacting the vision of those playing and officiating the game.
For nearly two hours, the young women battled it out but Sakkari conceded 7-5, 6-4, unable to match the American’s intensity.
READ MORE: French Open: Sakkari is the first Greek woman to make a Grand Slam semi final
While Sakkari seemed visibly heartbroken after her loss, she was still able to look to the future.
“Sometimes I am so excited about the Olympic Games that I can’t sleep. Seeing all these players slipping here, I was afraid that something would happen to me and I couldn’t go to Tokyo. So there is something positive in an early loss after all,” she said after her match.
The 25-year-old was knocked back from the French Open grand final just last month by Czech unseeded tennis player Barbora Krejcikova.
