Australian Nick Kyrgios stormed back from a first-set defeat to upset No. 1 seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia, winning 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-2 on Wednesday in the Round of 32 of the National Bank Open in Montreal.
Each of the top three seeds bowed out during Wednesday’s action, with No. 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz of Spain losing to American Tommy Paul and Greek third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas dropping his late-night match to British qualifier Jack Draper.
Kyrgios has been on a roll as of late, winning 14 of his past 15 matches and claiming the title last week at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. He improved to 3-1 against Medvedev in ATP action.
“I had a very clean objective of how I was going to play, a lot of serve-and-volley, a lot of aggressive play from the back,” Kyrgios said. “I executed better than he did, that’s all it comes down to. He won the first set and I feel like I had opportunities there as well, so hopefully I can just keep this rolling.”
Medvedev won just 38 percent of net points compared to Kyrgios, who won 67 percent.
“He was great. He was playing good,” Medvedev said of Kyrgios. “He beat me fairly, if we can say (it) like this.”
Paul also overcame a loss in the first set to topple Alcaraz 6-7 (4), 7-6 (7), 6-3. And Draper held on through two close sets to eliminate Tsitsipas 7-5, 7-6 (4), despite Tsitsipas serving eight aces and saving six of nine break points.
Russian fifth seed Andrey Rublev also lost to Great Britain’s Daniel Evans 6-4, 6-4. Only fourth-seeded Norwegian Casper Rudd managed to survive out of the top five seeds, as he defeated Slovakian Alex Molcan 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Canadian fans got to see countryman Felix Auger-Aliassime, the sixth seed, beat Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka 7-6 (6), 6-4 in a primetime match. No. 7 seed Jannik Sinner of Italy earned a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 win over French qualifier Adrian Mannarino and ninth-seeded Cameron Norrie of Great Britain swept the Netherlands’ Botic van de Zandschulp 6-1, 6-2.
In another pair of upsets, Spaniard Albert Ramos-Vinolas cruised past 12th-seeded Diego Schwartzman of Argentina 6-4, 6-2, and Alex de Minaur drew inspiration from countryman Kyrgios to best 15th-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria 7-6 (4), 7-5.
No. 10 seed Taylor Fritz won an all-American matchup by edging Frances Tiafoe 5-7, 6-1, 6-4, while Croatian Marin Cilic, Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain and France’s Gael Monfils — the 13th, 14th and 17th seeds, respectively — all won their respective matches.
In the only contest of the day that did not feature at least one seeded competitor, Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta beat Holger Rune of Denmark 6-0, 6-3.
–Field Level Media
