[amongsttheleaves]

                                                                                                                      

 

Having come through a testing match against Portugal's Joao Sousa in the second round, Andy will take on Aussie 'young gun' Nick Kyrgios. Kyrgios was due to play Britain's Kyle Edmund in the second round but had a walk-over after Edmund withdrew from the tournament with an abdominal strain. This means the Kyrgios has not played a match since Monday, however, Australian press reported that the flashy youngster practised twice yesterday to compensate for his lack of competitive match play.

Kyrgios is part of a group of young players who have a great deal of respect for Andy, but any thoughts of mentoring or friendship will be put aside for a match which is expected to be a highlight of the day.

Andy and Kyrgios have played twice before, in Toronto last year and in Melbourne earlier this year. The Scot has won both encounters in straight sets. That said Andy will be wary of Kyrgios, who is an up-and-coming player with a lot of confidence and belief he can beat anyone on any given day - he recently beat Federer on clay in Madrid. That day Federer struggled to return the Kyrgios serve, but the match was tight and all three sets went to tie-breaks.

In the previous meetings between Andy and the young Aussie, Kyrgios's own return of serve was exposed as a weakness. In Toronto Kyrgios won only one point on Andy's first serve. In Melbourne he improved this to twelve, and even converted a break point in the second set to push Andy to a tie-break.

Andy typically plays well against the big servers and hitters; his defence and variety can frustrate them into making errors, his return of serve usually pays dividends, particularly when he gets an opportunity to take on a second serve. Andy will probably look at keeping his first serve percentage high as much as possible. Against Sousa it averaged 57% for the whole match, impacted significantly by a drop from 68% in the first set to 36% in the second, which was accompanied by an increase in unforced errors. That serve percentage climbed steadily through the third and fourth sets, with Andy finishing the fourth set with a FSP of 67%, winning 90% of points behind it.

After making headlines this week for off-court reasons, Kyrgios is out to prove he is more than just a bad-boy playboy, and will look to add Andy to his collection of big four 'scalps'. If Andy's Twitter account is anything to go by then he is expecting some on-court fireworks. Kyrgios has pointed out that he is fitter and healthier since Melbourne. Andy has pointed towards his own fitness and pain-free body as a key factor in his improved clay form this year. From a spectator's point of view it should be an interesting match.

The match is scheduled for 11am on Susanne Lenglen, 10am BST. The weather is forecast to be approximately 18 degrees, with cloud cover, a chance of showers in the morning, and a westerly wind blowing at around 5mph.

Many thanks to Bevc for the H2H image.
Thanks to whoever added the poll because I forgot about that!

[lashurst]

Bev, if you are around and see this, do you feel like doing one of your head-to-heads?

That would be great if she has time. She's the Queen of H2H's.

[BigNose]

The worst thing about watching this match is going to be the commentators drooling over Kyrgios. Prepare to hear words like "sensation", "amazing character", "exciting personality", "breath of fresh air", "stunning", "beyond incredible" , "mind-blowingly awesome". It may be worth turning the sound down on your TV.

McEnroe thinks Kyrgios could be the world number 1 in a couple of years. You may recall McEnroe also tipped Grigor Dimitrov to win "numerous Slams" after he beat Andy at Wimbledon last year. Ho hum. What a load of cobblers.


I expect Andy to beat this young upstart in 3 sets.

[Matthew2408]

The worst thing about watching this match is going to be the commentators drooling over Kyrgios. Prepare to hear words like "sensation", "amazing character", "exciting personality", "breath of fresh air", "stunning", "beyond incredible" , "mind-blowingly awesome". It may be worth turning the sound down on your TV.

McEnroe thinks Kyrgios could be the world number 1 in a couple of years. You may recall McEnroe also tipped Grigor Dimitrov to win "numerous Slams" after he beat Andy at Wimbledon last year. Ho hum. What a load of cobblers.


I expect Andy to beat this young upstart in 3 sets.

I know it has already got so annoying, Inverdale was just doing exactly that on ITV4. I believe Kyrgios will have similar career to Tsonga as that is who Nick reminds me of, but only time will tell and I don't think Kyrgios will encounter the same strength of opponents that Tsonga did when he is at his peak so Nick may be more successful.

[Matthew2408]

What are these off-court headlines mentioned in the introduction?

I think it might be that Nick said he enjoys having pre-match sex even though his coaches tell him not to!

[Matthew2408]

I don't underestimate Kyrgios - and we know he loves the big stage. Conditions and timing not particularly good for Andy either - First on Lenglen, cool with chance of showers. Not exactly a crowd-pulling combo.   Love the intro tho'  especially the demotion of Andy to one of the "bog four"!!

The conditions aren't good for Kyrgios as he would prefer the faster Chatrier with warm weather to make the surface quicker.

[Fiverings]

Oops, that was quite the typo! Fixing it now!

  You should leave it - in another era it would make Colemanballs ! ( Tennisballs?)

[Aileen]

  You should leave it - in another era it would make Colemanballs ! ( Tennisballs?)

lol  Coleman was indeed the master of sporting bloopers.  Fortunately this one has been preserved for posterity in the quote in ATL's own post and Matthew 2408's as well!

The conditions aren't good for Kyrgios as he would prefer the faster Chatrier with warm weather to make the surface quicker.

Sounds like a fairly even playing-field from the conditions' point of view, but I still maintain that Andy doesn't play his best tennis in the mornings.   However I think Kyrgios's lack of match practice here could tell, as well as lack of experience, even if does love being on the big stage, although the lack of spectators might cool him down a bit.  Andy probably won't be too happy either but it's something he's had to learn to deal with.  Well, Kyrgios was loud-mouthing at the start of the tournament that he could 'do damage' here, but, while Andy won't be under-estimating him, he won't be under-estimating Andy.