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Journalism of Courage
Nick Kyrgios says his recent bout of COVID-19 “hit me pretty hard.”
“I was training five hours a day, feeling extraordinary, and then it hit me and I was bedridden. Couldn’t really breathe well. Coughing,” the 26-year-old Australian said after a 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 victory over qualifier Liam Broady in the first round at Melbourne Park. “I was pretty bad. Like, for someone that you assume is in the peak of his physicality, I got hit pretty bad.”
This was Kyrgios’ first match of 2022. He advanced to a meeting against No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev, the champion at the U.S. Open and runner-up at the Australian Open last year.
Kyrgios, a two-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist, pulled out of a tuneup tournament in Sydney on Jan. 10 after testing positive for COVID-19.
“Anyone that’s been through it, I hope honestly for the best. Obviously physically I don’t feel 100%, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse,” he said. “Like, everyone is dealing with that at the moment. The whole world is dealing with it. So I’m just going to take it day by day.”
Daniil Medvedev launched his bid for a maiden Australian Open title on Tuesday with a 6-1 6-4 7-6(3) romp over Swiss battler Henri Laaksonen.
US Open champion Medvedev, favourite to win at Melbourne Park in the wake of Novak Djokovic’s deportation, was in cruise control for two sets against world number 91 Laaksonen before being dragged into a proper dog-fight in the third set.
Finland-born Laaksonen produced scintillating tennis to keep in touch with Medvedev in the tiebreak before faltering with a pair of unforced errors that gave the Russian three match points.
Murray wins Basilashvili thriller
Andy Murray dipped into the depth of his defensive skills to tame big-hitting Nikoloz Basilashvili during a thrilling 6-1 3-6 6-4 6-7(5) 6-4 win to reach the second round of the Australian Open for the first time in five years.
The former world number one, a five-time finalist at Melbourne Park, has seen his ranking plummet since hip surgery in 2019 and long injury layoffs that followed and needed a wildcard into the main draw of this year’s tournament.
The 113th-ranked Murray, who won the last of his three major titles at Wimbledon in 2016, showed he still had the game to trouble top players on the tour and forced the 21st seed from Georgia into making a litany of errors.
It was Murray’s first match at Melbourne Park since a five-set defeat by Roberto Bautista Agut in 2019. He skipped the 2018 and 2020 tournaments with injury and also missed the last edition after testing positive for COVID-19 in the leadup.
Men’s fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas wrapped up the program on Rod Laver Arena with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 win over Mikael Ymer.
Tsitsipas, a runner-up at the French Open and a semifinalist in Australia last year, will play Sebastian Baez in the next round.
Ninth-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime fended off Emil Ruusuvuori 6-4, 0-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, and Maxime Cressy overcame 20 double-faults to upset fellow American and No. 22-seeded John Isner 7-6 (2), 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-7 (4), 6-4.
(With AP inputs)
