Nick Kyrgios began the last major US Open tune-up with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Tuesday at the ATP/WTA Cincinnati Masters.
The Australian marched through with 29 winners – including 10 aces – and three breaks of the Span-iard’s serve to reach the second round.
The 28th-ranked Kyrgios has won all 11 of his first-round matches this season and won his 22nd match since returning to the ATP in June after skip-ping the clay season.
He now faces good friend Taylor Fritz after the American crushed Sebastian Baez 6-1, 6-1. “Physi-cally, I didn’t feel the best, but you have to keep pushing, keep trying,” Kyrgios said.
“Alejandro’s a hell of a player, he’s got a lot of shots at his disposal. I had to serve well and dictate,” the Montreal quarter-finalist aded.
“It was tricky conditions out there, the courts are a lot more lively than Montreal, it was harder to con-trol the ball.”
Kyrgios took 50 minutes to secure the first set, wrapping it up after a break in the penultimate game with back-to-back serve winners.
He went up an early break to start the second set but lost it three games later as the dissatisfied Aus-tralian kept up a frustrated gripe session with his three-strong support box as Davidovich Fokina made it 2-2.
Kyrgios struck straight back with a love break to regain control 3-2 and ran out the winner in 91 min-utes on his second match point.
It marked a happy return to Cincinnati for Kyr-gios, who was fined a record $113,000 during a spectacular meltdown at the tournament in 2019 when he smashed two racquets in the locker room in a loss to Karen Khachanov.—APP
