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The giant killer has slain the giant killer: Nick Kyrgios has beaten Dustin Brown.
The man who beat Rafael Nadal in 2014 has beaten the man who beat Rafa Nadal in 2015. Better still, the lucky souls who had tickets to Court No.2 on Friday had a blast.
This was always going to be one of the matches of the day: two showmen with huge games, big personalities and a range of shots at the disposal that others could only dream of.
And, in the end, the rankings did not lie: Kyrgios, the world No.18, had just a bit more game, just a little more experience, than the world No.85 and finally stamped his authority on proceedings 6-7(3), 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Originally scheduled to begin at 11am, they finally finished their day’s work at 6.48pm – nearly eight hours of rain delays and frustrations to complete two hours and five minutes of play. But for those couple of hours, it was the best show in town.
“It was fun,” Kyrgios said. “He’s a great player to watch, an entertainer. Some of the shots he plays are just incredible. It’s tough to concentrate against and he’s had some good runs here so I knew it was going to be a tough match.”
The two are friends off the court which can be a problem for some players – no one wants to thrash a mate. But for this particular pair, there is a joy in what they do when they do it well and a mutual admiration and respect for what the other can pull off with bat and ball.
When Brown delivered the sort of volley winner that defied the laws of physics, one that crossed the net at the acutest of angles and then faded quickly, Kyrgios just shook his head and gave his verdict: “Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.”
(This was mean as a huge compliment, by the way). When Kyrgios thundered down a second serve ace, Brown gave him a huge thumbs up. And when Kyrgios almost took Brown’s head off with a mistimed serve attempt, he followed through and up to the net saying “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…” Both men wanted to win but they were still mates at heart.
The bond of friendship did not extend to the umpire, Jake Garner, however. When Brown was called for a foot fault in the first game, Kyrgios muttered “It’s an outrage.” When Brown complained about a dodgy call of let, he complained on his own behalf and on that of his opponent.
He had, he thought, been robbed of an ace on that particular point and Kyrgios had been similarly robbed by a dubious double fault in a previous point. Garner was getting it from both sides.
Rallies were at a premium thanks the weight of Kyrgios’s serves and Brown’s game plan: serve and volley, receive and volley, when in doubt: volley. If he could have volleyed during the change of ends, he probably would have given it a go. For such a laid back bloke, he does like to be awfully aggressive on a tennis court.
This led to an unconventional statistic: by the time the two men were heading into the first set tie-break, the average number of shots required to win the point on serve were 2.5 shots for Brown and 2.2 for Kyrgios. Now, the 0.5 of a shot we can imagine (forehand into the net, backhand into the tramlines) but the 0.2? What on earth does that look like? Answers, please, on a postcard to the usual address…
He’s a great player to watch, an entertainer. Some of the shots he plays are just incredible
When those brief and explosive rallies did break out, they had everyone on the edge of the seats. The power that both men could produce combined with the seemingly effortless and almost casual touches and dinks made it look, at times, like an exhibition match. There were aces and thunderbolts, ‘tweeners’ and flicks – you could not take your eyes off it for a moment.
The first set was nip and tuck, the second was all Kyrgios and the third was all Brown. But that third set was the start of the fraying of the Australian’s patience. As he sped in to pick up a drop volley, Garner deemed that the ball had bounced twice before Kyrgios got there. Kyrgios politely disagreed. Pointedly but politely. That got him started.
After that, his team in the players’ box took a bit of an ear bashing and when, in the fifth set, a line judge dared to giggle when his call was overruled by Garner in the chair, Kyrgios was at it again, defining what constituted an acceptable sense of humour and what did not. The tall Autralian was clearly a disgruntled man.
He kept his cool to take the fourth set and was holding a precious break point at 3-3 in the fifth when the heavens opened again. That meant another 93 minutes kicking his heels in the locker room but when he returned, Kyrgios had not broken step. He made three returns on the bullet-like Brown serve and won two of the points. The break had been secured and nine minutes later he was into the third round.
