Ah, tennis players. They grow up so quickly these days.
It hardly seemed any time ago that Nick Kyrgios was the bad boy in town. Perhaps that is a bit harsh – the naughty boy in the class. If someone was going to get caught doing something wrong, it would be Nick. The poor bloke could not do right for doing wrong.
Yet here he is in the fourth round of Australian Open 2018 after a 7-6(5) 4-6 7-6(6) 7-6(5) win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, in what has to be the most entertaining match of the tournament so far. The hometown crowd got the result they wanted; the neutrals got the entertainment they craved. It was a win-win, unless you happened to be French.
At the this time of year, the spotlight shines brightest on the Australian players, just as it does on the French in May, the Brits in July and the Americans in September. To have a home Grand Slam tournament is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, the home support is fabulous, but living in the pressure-cooker of national expectation takes some getting used to.
Kyrgios has had his moments learning to cope with such problems, and there have been times when he has not coped particularly well. But he is only 22, and he has been coming here for five years – that is a lot of attention for a young man trying to find his feet on one of the sport’s biggest stages.
This year, though, has been different. Even since the end of an injury-troubled 2017, Kyrgios has matured, chilled and … well, grown up.
In his last round, he faced a host of distractions that once would have thrown him off course. A helicopter whirring overhead, someone in the crowd shouting the odds as Kyrgios was about to serve – save for a troupe of dancing elephants entering stage left, Australia’s great hope had to face it all. And he did. Without a meltdown or a murmur (more or less). This was a new Nick, a cool Nick. And a winning Nick.
Now, as we move towards the thick end of the tournament, the pressure is mounting and the opposition is getting bigger and stronger. Now Kyrgios’ new maturity would be tested.
If anyone was going to torment the world No.17, it was going to be Tsonga. The Frenchman could match power with power, aggression with aggression and, if they were still neck and neck after all that, Tsonga had a deft touch at the net and a decade worth of experience over his rival.
For three hours and 17 minutes, there was barely a whisker in it. The first set hung on three points: one gave Kyrgios a break of serve, another gave Tsonga the break back and the third – a Tsonga double fault on set point – gave Kyrgios the set.
The second set went to France when Kyrgios made a simple mistake and then could not let it go. Muttering and chuntering to himself, his mind was on what might have been, while Tsonga was making the most of the here and now. With the third set balanced on a knife-edge, only the tiebreak shoot-out could separate them.
In the end, it was Tsonga who cracked first. Someone in the crowd was giving him grief at the start of the fourth set and, in French, the No.15 seed told him to come down here and say that, pal. Or words to that effect. That was a step too far for the umpire Jake Garner, and Tsonga earned himself a code violation for unsportsmanlike behaviour.
And all the while, Kyrgios stayed as cool as a cucumber. The respect he clearly had for Tsonga, his childhood idol, was obvious, and the affection between the two men was clear. They were fighting tooth and nail for a place in the fourth round and yet there were smiles, the odd bit of cheery chat and an excellent atmosphere on court. Perhaps Kyrgios had had his moment before a ball had been struck. The match had not even started when he was warned for not being ready in time for the opening rally. But if that was to be his only serious transgression all night, he would take it.
Whenever Kyrgios found himself in trouble, he served his way out of it. There were some second serves that clocked just under 200km/h – the man from Canberra was not holding back. This match would be won with nerves of steel and not a little chutzpah.
Then again, down at the other end of the court, Tsonga was doing much the same; 28 aces to match Kyrgios’s 28 thunderbolts, 49 unreturned serves and 84 first serve points won. Break that, if you can. But Kyrgios did in the fourth set tiebreak. Two points, two returns and the tiebreak was turned on its head, and our grown-up Nick was through to the fourth round.