Winside or outside, Nick Kyrgios’ show never ceases to entertain. On Wednesday night, after more than three hours on the court, the renegade advanced to the third round of the Australian Open with a five-set win on the roller coaster over Ugo Humbert, to the frantic delirium of a tumultuous John Cain Arena.
“Honestly, I don’t know how I did it,” said Kyrgios later. “That was one of the craziest games I’ve ever played.”
When Kyrgios walks towards you it’s like coming face to face with a hip-hop star. The fading, the adjustment, the pimp hobbling; six feet and four inches of stately gains.
Like a school child with a “cute” physique (your words, not mine) he was photographed on the court with a Wu Wear top with a racket in his hand and an expression on his face that suggested, like the Wu-Tang Clan, that he “is not crazy”. As more than a jolt pointed out, Canberran plays tennis like Wu-Tang incarnate, since on nights like Wednesday there can be up to nine characters fighting for attention during their matches.
But the Staten Island collective is also famous for its improvisation and creativity. A recent study suggests that Wu-Tang has one of the broadest vocabularies in hip-hop. Kyrgios is no different in his discipline. No one else serves in the armpits, as he did successfully in the first set. No one chooses a tweener as an offensive strategy at the start of a decisive set, as he did. He even paid his debts with previous OGs with his version of Roger’s Sneak Attack.
When Kyrgios walks away from you, the view is completely different. The broad shoulders that framed the imposing support in one direction seemed curved in the other, forming the silhouette of a man with his head bowed and uncomfortable. The shine and paint on the front simply become a mass-produced polyester shirt glued to the sweaty back when viewed from behind. Limping seems, well, limping.
The side that Kyrgios displays depends on the energy. After his underarm serve in the fourth game, he asked an already turbulent audience to make a noise. Five games later, he repeated the gesture before Humbert served to save a breakpoint. Chest out, shoulders back, he was in his element.
No more 10 minutes passed and he was knocked down and at the end of receiving a code violation by a destructive blow to his racket. As the crowd held their breath, their champion stiffened, his blows contained less intelligence, and the collective belief came out of the open roof. This was not an unknown script.
But Kyrgios’ pessimistic version worked briefly in his favor. Instead of playing for his Instagram account, the winner of six ATP Tour titles played like a champion, opting for a series of sensible rallies. Humbert blinked first and a pause for each one soon led to a set for each. Kyrgios jumped and punched the air like a center forward, marking the winner of the cup final in extra time. The wave was back in motion.
Humbert, an impassive southpaw and a trained pianist who enjoys playing the theme song for the movie Titanic, couldn’t be more different from Kyrgios. But after seven games in the third set, this contrast of style and personality registered uniform statistics on almost every line. Then Kyrgios made a double fault in two with the set at 3-4 and that sinking feeling came back. After suffering the only break in the set, Kyrgios soon received a points penalty for a second breach of the code, this time for cursing.
A break at the start of round four allowed Humbert to keep pace for half an hour. It looked like a victory cruise. But when it came to serving in 5-4, Kyrgios, of the canvas, raised his guard once again, finding angles and blowbacks, causing fans to spread through the corridors like WrestleMania. The ringmaster at John Cain Arena was suddenly in his happy place, in a trance and loose, striking ground strokes and bombing aces with impetus in his steps and electricity in the air. Two and a half hours of competition is a long time to wait for the flow to arrive, but when it does, it almost brings the house down.
A huge wave of momentum hit Humbert in the final set. Kyrgios broke the service in quick time and on the move after the third game, the crowd shouted Livin ‘on a Prayer in a deafening volume. “This is the best shoe that has sounded since the pandemic,” said Jim Courier.
This was a moment. A moment to drown out the negativity that has dominated the past few days and months. A moment to revel in the power of a crowd.
Soon after, it was Nick Kyrgios’ turn to have a moment for himself. Soon on his knees, then standing to greet the worshipers who propelled him to a heady triumph.
It took almost three days, but thanks to Nick Kyrgios, the Australian Open has finally started.