It won’t quite be the Ashes, but there will be a similar feeling to the cricket rivalry between Australia and England when Nick Kyrgios and Andy Murray clash in the quarter-finals on Tuesday night with a semi-final berth at stake.
All the energy and effort Channel Seven invested in heavily promoting Kyrgios ahead of the Australian Open has paid off more than handsomely, with the 19-year-old Canberran becoming the first local man since Lleyton Hewitt in 2005 to reach the quarter-finals.
It almost didn’t happen after Kyrgios dropped the opening two sets to Italy’s Andreas Seppi and faced a match point late in the fourth set. All hope appeared lost and we would have been sentenced to yet another year without an Aussie in the quarter-finals.
But just as he did against Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon last year, Kyrgios would begin his comeback. After being broken late in each of the first two sets, the 19-year-old started to play much better in the third set, racing out to an early lead before claiming the third set 6-3.
Games went on serve in the fourth set until Seppi brought up a match point against his serve in the 11th game. However, Kyrgios was able to save it with an ace, then would hold to force a tiebreaker which he just won 7-5.
At that stage, it was two sets all. Game on.
Kyrgios broke early for a 3-0 lead but a costly lapse in concentration while serving at 4-2 up would see him lose that break of serve and all of a sudden, the set was back on serve.
From there, games would again go on serve until 6-7, where Seppi found himself having to serve to remain in the tournament and keep alive his chances of reaching his first Grand Slam quarter-final in his 40th appearance.
However, Kyrgios would break to love and the victory was confirmed when a Seppi challenge was revealed to be unsuccessful, his backhand going wide and sending Kyrgios and the Hisense Arena crowd into absolute delirium.
The final score was 5-7, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), 8-6.
News of the Kyrgios result was relayed onto Rod Laver Arena, where Andy Murray and Grigor Dimitrov were clashing for the right to take on the winner of the match that was unfolding at Hisense Arena.
If you watch the video below, you’ll think that the crowd were cheering after Dimitrov saved a break point midway through the second set. However, you’ll hear that they were actually cheering on the final result that was coming out of Hisense Arena.
Murray won this match in four sets, avenging his loss to the Bulgarian at Wimbledon last year, to advance to the last eight at Melbourne Park for the sixth consecutive time.
Just as it seemed certain the match would go to a fifth set, Murray came from 3-5 down in the fourth set, broke Dimitrov to love at 5-5 and then held to set up the Ashes-like blockbuster quarter-final showdown against Nick Kyrgios.
The pair have met once before, at the Rogers Cup last year in what was Kyrgios’ first Masters 1000 event. After defeating Santiago Giraldo in his first match, the Canberran proved no match for Murray, losing in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.
This time, it will be a totally different Nick Kyrgios that Murray will face on Tuesday. The Scot is looking the goods as he seeks to return to the Australian Open final for the first time since 2013, having yet to lose a match in 2015.
Murray copped some criticism when he appointed Amelie Mauresmo as his new coach midway through last year. However, the partnership appears to have been vindicated with the Scot overcoming a mostly poor 2014 to finish last year ranked sixth in the world.
And Murray will have Mauresmo, the women’s champion in 2006, to thank if he can break through Down Under this year after previously losing three championship matches in 2010, 2011 and 2013.
Meanwhile, the other bottom half quarter-final will be contested by the Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych, who knocked out the other remaining Australian in the draw, Bernard Tomic, and world number three Rafael Nadal.
With the exception of his second round match against Tim Smyczek, Nadal has played exceptionally well so far this tournament and will start favourite to defeat Berdych, who hasn’t beaten the Spaniard since 2006.
If the two men’s quarter-final results unfold as planned, then Murray, who would have had to face Roger Federer in the quarter-finals had the latter not lost to Seppi, and Nadal, will clash in a Thursday night semi-final.
Note: At the time of writing the two top half men’s quarter-finals had yet to be decided.
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