Nick Kyrgios once again showed off his eccentricities on a tennis court at the Murray River Open, one of the pre-Australian Open tournaments that are held in Melbourne.
The Australian, thirteenth favorite, fell in two sets to fourth seed Borna Coric 6-3, 6-4 although he was once again the protagonist for his attitude on the track.
Kyrgios, who played suffering from knee discomfort (“I can't serve without pain,” he said after the game “) he broke out in the ninth game of the second set, when he lost his serve on a scoreless game. The Australian smashed his racket on the ground and later threw it into the stands empty before Coric closed his sleeve and the encounter with a 6-4.Coric will now meet in the quarterfinals with the British Daniel Evans, who gave the American Marcos Giron no options (6-4 and 7-6 (4)). But in the quarter-final match Evans managed to beat the Croatian 7-5, 7-6 (1).
Like Coric the main favorite to the title, the Swiss Stan Wawrinka also went to the round of 16 of the tournament. “Stan The Man” suffered to win in three sets against Australian Alex Bolt by 6-4, 4-6 and 7-6 (5) after two hours and 23 minutes of the game. Wawrinka had to play for a place in the semifinals against the French Jeremy Chardy, who beat American Taylor Fritz 6-2, 6-4. Nevertheless Chardy went directly to the semi-finals of the tournament after the Swiss decided to leave before the quarterfinal game. In this way Evans and Chardy will play the first semifinal of the tournament.
Felix Auger-Aliassime also struggled, who had to wait for the tie-break of the third and decisive set to defeat Belarusian Egor Gerasimov 3-6, 6-3 and 7-6 (6). Later the Canadian sealed his pass to the semifinals after defeating Czech Jiri Vesely 7-6 (3) in the quarterfinals and retired before the start of the second set. In the semifinals, Auger-Aliassime will face Frenchman Corentin Moutet, who defeated Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, second favorite for the title, in the quarterfinals, 7-5, 6-2.
Murray River Open results and draw.