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2017 Davis Cup, Australia vs Czech Republic 1st Round, Rubber 2 Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, Melbourne Nick Kyrgios vs Jan Satral |
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Nick Kyrgios will be hoping for a relatively comfortable start to his 2017 Davis Cup campaign, taking on the Czech Republic’s Jan Satral in the second rubber at Kooyong. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from around 1pm (AEDT).
After a good start to the season in Perth at the Hopman Cup, Kyrgios has battled a knee injury and bombed out of the Australian Open in the second round against Andreas Seppi after holding a two-set lead.
The loss, which wasn’t Kyrgios’ finest moment, earnt him an absolute bashing from the media as the Australian world No.15 was accused of tanking once more, after he finished 2016 on the shelf for the same reason.
Despite that, Kyrgios has sounded positive speaking to the media at nearly every opportunity this year and the loss against Seppi was the only time he has played poorly this year, with the exception of losing to Jack Sock in Perth.
Kyrgios has had his serve working for him wonderfully, and his style – which is all power – has been simply working opponents out of the game far too quickly for them to recover.
Satral, on the other hand is currently ranked No.156 in the world and should be no serious challenge for Kyrgios, although he would be hopeful of battling Jordan Thompson well on Sunday.
Even though Satral has quite a good record on the hard courts – statistically it’s his best surface – he has had an ordinary start to the summer of tennis and questions as to why the Czechs didn’t select Redak Stepanek for singles have to be asked.
Satral started the year at the Happy Valley Challenger, going down in the first round to Ilya Ivashka before failing to qualify for the Australian open, falling at the final hurdle.
He then went to the USA for a challenger event in Maui again falling in the first round, this time to Mitchell Krueger. Losing to players he should be beating doesn’t bode well for a match against Kyrgios, with a serve that’s failing him and errors coming left, right and centre.
The pair have never faced off before, but this being the second rubber of a Davis Cup tie, it has plenty riding on it, with the score either going to 1-1 or 2-0, which is a monster difference.
Prediction
Kyrgios should have a pretty cruisy sort of match here. While he is susceptible to meltdowns, this shouldn’t be one of them as he powers Satral off the court.
Kyrgios in straight sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live coverage of the second rubber at the Davis Cup from around 1pm (AEDT) or at the completion of Jordan Thompson vs Jiri Vesely and be sure to add a comment below.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde