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MELBOURNE, Australia – Leylah Fernandez has some experience playing with a popular, but diminished star attraction at a Grand Slam.
At the US Open last summer, she teamed with Venus Williams for the women’s doubles.
But a collaboration with Nick Kyrgios, who didn’t play singles and lost his opening men’s doubles match with mate Thanasi Kokkinakis at this Australian Open, was a bit of an unlikely development.
But Kyrgios chose well; the 23-year-old Canadian (almost) literally carried him to a 6-7 (6), 6-4, 12-10 win over two-time Wimbledon mixed champions Neal Skupski and Desirae Krawczyk in the opening round on ANZ Arena.
They were down 3-7 in the match tiebreak, and down match points, too.
They next will face either the No. 7 seeds Olivia Nicholls and Henry Patten, or Anna Danilina and J.J. Tracy.
“That was some of the craziest energy that I’ve had,” Kyrgios said. “I have obviously played some amazing matches at AO, but that’s got to be one of my favorite ones. Like, 9-6 down, 7-3, obviously we’re thinking – realistically, tennis players, you don’t always believe you can come back. But I was like, ‘Look, if we’re just one at a time, maybe we can do it.’ “
Fernandez swiped right
Fernandez said it was she who reached out to Kyrgios, when both were in Brisbane to start the season, to nail down this high-profile spot.
“I remember the night before, my dad and I were talking, and we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if Nick and I, we played doubles together?’ We were just talking like that, as jokingly a little bit,” Fernandez said.
Fernandez’s father Jorge approached Kyrgios before a practice and he agreed. It was as simple as that.
Kyrgios didn’t take the warmup too seriously. But he took the match a LITTLE more seriously. Even chugging some Pepsi Max for a little extra energy (not much energy as, say, a Red Bull, but some).
If he had taken it all about … five per cent more seriously – even if only at the key moments – they might well have gone through in straight sets.
But the full house on ANZ Arena was rowdy, he was in crowd-pleasing mode, and tried a few too many cute drop volleys that didn’t work.
To his credit, he resisted the pleas of a few fellows in the crowd to hit an underarm serve.
Meanwhile, Fernandez just carried them, and kept them in long enough that a few Kyrgios shots paid off in the end.
Here’s what it looked like courtside.
Great atmosphere and crowd participation
Krawczyk and Skupski, who sort of were the Washington Generals in this dynamic, were still able to have a good time with it.
When Krawczyk (who does NOT have a big serve) aced Kyrgios at one point, with the reaction you would expect from the Aussie, she responded in kind.
The straight-up Skupski even executed a Tweener. And whatever Kyrgios was saying to him at times, he had a big smile on his face.
Except, of course, the outcome wasn’t in their favour. Which for the doubles specialists was a lot more significant than it is for Kyrgios and Fernandez.
“Tennis is one of the only sports where you can have your favorite female athlete and favorite male athlete compete at the highest level for great prize money and a great trophy. I think mixed doubles is actually underutilized, and I think it’s very competitive,” Kyrgios said. “That atmosphere out there was special, and no other sport can really mix the two and create that energy.”
Kyrgios and Fernandez will have to wait for their next match They first-round match that will determine their opponents was to take place on Saturday.
But the long stoppage of play because of the extreme heat postponed it.