The early fall of Nick Kyrgios at the Australian Open

It seems like it wasnt Nick Kyrgios day coming into the Australian Open, home country turf in a round one loss at the hands of Milos Raonic. Kyrgios might have been looking forward to going deep into the tournament and pleasing not only himself, but his hometown fans and crowds with a good performance, but it wasnt meant to be.

I dont know how it could get so painful in the space of…three games, the Australian had said after the medical timeout. He was getting ticked off that his painful knee was getting the better of his game as well as Milos Raonic who didnt allow him a single break point the entire match.

Kyrgios wasnt even able to rely on his huge booming serves consistently enough to dig himself out of the hole he was in at that starting set. The first set Kyrgios managed to keep up with the Canadian and even served a few aces, some down the T

The games were levelled at 4-all as he seemed to favour his knee and not being able to connect on the shots that Raonic had dished out. It wasnt long that the first set had gone to Raonic was able to execute all of his shots in a grade A manner, winning 6-4.

The second set Raonic kept up his intensity and precision shots with finding the open court on Kyrgios and creating the victory points. The score was 3-all and Kyrgios had seemed to lose interest in the game by doing the under the leg returns and not having the zest for playing.

But at times there must have been a let up of pain or emotions and the Australian was back on track and hitting more winners than before to take the game to a tiebreak. At some point, he had the lead in points and the crowd started to feel hopeful that their hometown guy would pull this match out and zoom to the second round but Raonics game was a blend of consistency and great skill which helped him to win the tiebreak and second set 7-6.

The deciding set was a constant hustle for Kyrgios whos ailing knee seemed to have lessened in pain and he had gotten many a good quality winning cross courts and aces, but it was Raonic who proved to be the more consistent and agile to win the last set at 6-4.

There were many reasons why Nick Kyrgios lost the opening round of the Australian Oen to Raonic, but it wasnt exactly the pain in his knee. He explained saying I dont think that was the reason I lost at all.

He played unbelievably…Ive never been a part of it. I was just watching. I was literally going side to side…trying to mix it up…he was in such a good rhythm…he was way too good for me tonight… A bit of gossip and talk had surfaced pertaining to what ATP player Bernard Tomic said on the likes of Lleyton Hewitt, from thinking he should retire and never being hired by Tennis Australia as captain of the Australian Davis Cup.

There was mention of how big named players will not play Davis Cup until Hewitt is no longer captain and so many assumptions and presumptions had been floating around. It was at the press conference afterwards that a media person had asked Kyrgios about the situation and he gave hardly an answer just confirming that the reason he lost wasnt solely because of his knee.

The media person continued to pick away at Kyrgios asking what was the problem and what was his opinion on the Tomic/Hewitt situation asking Is there a rift between you and Lleyton Hewitt? Kyrgios didnt want to commit his true feelings and said nonchalantly Not really

The situation grew even tenser as the media tried to pry more information and said to Kyrgios Not really? But the Australian was growing impatient and determined not to give his sincere feelings said: Is there an echo in here? This caused a collective amount of uncomfortable giggles and the press conference began to slowly wind down.