Nick Kyrgios has continued his brilliant run at the Miami Open, beating world number 34 Fabio Fognini in straight sets to reach the last 16.
It took him an hour and one minute to breeze past the Italian, just two days after his 6-3, 6-0 dismantling of world number six Andrey Rublev.
The Australian’s talent has never been in question, as he put on a dominant display that included ten aces.
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“It was a really great performance, not only was his tennis of a really high standard I thought mentally he kept his composure really well,” commentator Tim Henman said.
“It was mature, professional, calculated. He’ll be extremely pleased with his progress so far.”
Kyrgios will face another top 20 player in the fourth round, as he awaits the winner of Pablo Carreno Busta and Jannik Sinner.
But he wasn’t just making waves online for his play, as he came to the defence of English young gun Emma Raducanu.
The 19-year-old has drawn recent criticism from former players for a perceived lack of focus on tennis – something Kyrgios is all-too-familiar with.
“All the locker room respect she had after the US Open is now kind of going away which is a shame,” Daniela Hantuchova said of Raducanu, while former Australian Open winner Kim Clijsters gave some recent comments which were perceived by many to be about either Raducanu, or Naomi Osaka.
“We’ve seen others that kind of take a step back and say, `Oh, I’ve won a Slam now, I’ve made it. There’s sponsors coming in and I get treated like a princess wherever I go,” Clijsters said.
“Just because you’re the No.1 player and have won Slams, doesn’t mean you should treat other people differently.”
It wasn’t entirely clear who Kyrgios was responding to specifically, but he wasn’t pleased.
https://twitter.com/NickKyrgios/status/1508091650551152644
“What’s with old retired players giving their opinion on our stars now?” Kyrgios wrote on Twitter.
“I love A-Rod [Andy Roddick] and I agree we all need to chill with the racquets and all that, but geezus, I read an article about a past female player talking about Raducanu, no offence but she is a far far bigger name already.”