Nick Kyrgio’s rebirth continues in Miami: the Australian easily reached 16 on Sunday.
And in relation to Andrei Rublev (7th), who was scanned in 53 minutes in the previous round, he was in steamroller mode that eliminated 6-2, 6-4 the Italian Fabio Fognini (34th), this time spending another eight minutes in court.
In the doubles, Canadian Denis Sapovalov defeated Rohan Bopana 6-3, 7-6 (3) with Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic.
They will now face Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski in the quarterfinals.
A volcano goes out, a great player wakes up
The spring of 2022 is successful for Kyrgios, who after a good run at the Indian Wells Masters where he surrendered to Rafael Nadal, shows his best face in tennis.
Behaviorally, the explosion is never too far away. The California Balboa almost controlled it the hard way when he had to sink the racket that the 26-year-old just broke in anger after his defeat by the Spaniard. But for now in Florida, his calm is absolute.
“It was not easy today before the match, all the social networks were waiting for fireworks between us. “I knew I had to approach it with the right mindset, calmly, with my head down,” the Australian explained.
Excellent in service (10 aces, 77% first serve), Kyrgios tried to shorten the exchanges by doing his best to speak, against an opponent who was obviously not in his best form, after calling the doctor between the two sets.
The Italian resisted as best he could until 4-4 in the second set. Kyrgios, whose level of play is the opposite of his 102nd place in the world, then won the next eight points to win.
The one who went through a very dark period, with suicidal thoughts, in 2019 and coming out of two difficult years at the tennis level, finally finds a smile. He will try to keep it in the next round, against another Italian Jannik Sinner (11th) or the Spaniard Pablo Carreno (19th).
Other qualifiers of the day were Norway’s Casper Ruud (8th), who defeated Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik (33rd) 6-3, 6-2, and Britain’s Cameron Norrie (12th), winner of a 6-4 hangout. , 7-5 against the French Hugo Gaston (68th).
