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Nick Kyrgios believes he can win Wimbledon after delivering a tennis masterclass to surge into the last 16 and send a chilling warning to his title rivals.
Kyrgios’s fire trumped Milos Raonic’s ice as the Australian tennis showman turned up the heat to blast his way past the seventh seed 5-7 7-5 7-6 (7-3) 6-3 in a breathtaking third-round performance on Show Court Two.
In a remarkable display of power and precision, Kyrgios out-aced the game’s most explosive server – and coolest competitor – 34 to 18 and mixed 61 clean winners with just 13 unforced errors over two hours and 42 minutes of grand slam focus.
His sweet revenge after falling to the Canadian in last year’s quarter-finals earned Kyrgios a return stoush on Monday with 21st seed Richard Gasquet.
It was against the Frenchman in last year’s second round that Kyrgios announced his arrival as a grand slam force when he saved a record nine match points before gunning down Rafael Nadal in round four.
Now Gasquet – who clubbed 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov, also a semi-finalist last year, 6-3 6-4 6-4 in his own third-round statement – again stands in Kyrgios’s way.
Not that Kyrgios cares after the 20-year-old produced some magical and, at times insane, tennis to send Raonic packing.
“I don’t fear anyone,” Kyrgios said.
“I definitely feel I’m playing better tennis than last year. Whoever I play I’m going to have the same mindset.”
Asked if he could go all the way and become Australia’s first champion since Lleyton Hewitt in 2002, Kyrgios said: “Yeah, I think if I play the right style of tennis, obviously if I’m serving well, feeling good out there, I think I can go close”.
“I have a tough task ahead. Gasquet is playing some really good tennis. Beating Dimitrov in straight is not an easy task on the grass.”
Unlike in his first two rounds, when he lost his rag and feuded with umpires, Kyrgios kept his cool to turn around a match that threatened to slip out of control to notch a hugely impressive comeback victory against one of game’s biggest players.
Not even a code of conduct warning from chair umpire Manuel Messina after bouncing his racquet into the crowd could fluster the focused title hopeful.
Enforcing the All England Club’s all-white dress code – which even cleanskin Roger Federer has dubbed too strict – the Italian official also asked Kyrgios to remove his Wimbledon-coloured and issued headband.
Rather than bite back, though, Kyrgios merely turned it inside out, put it back on and knuckled down to business.
He crunched four successive aces to hold to love and level the tie in the most spectacular of fashion before recovering from 2-0 down in the third-set tiebreaker to clinch the third set with his 26th ace.
Serving second in the fourth set, Raonic was always under the pump and cracked with a double-fault and then a backhand wide to hand Kyrgios the chance to close out the match at 5-3.
He made no mistake and and wrapped up the high-quality contest with yet another booming off-forehand winner to send shudders through the draw.
While Kyrgios marched on, defending champion Novak Djokovic ended Bernard Tomic’s campaign with a 6-3 6-3 6-3 elimination of the Australian No.1 and Samantha Stosur crashed out of the women’s event with a 6-2 6-0 collapse against American Coco Vandeweghe.
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