The word going around town prior to Nick Kyrgios’ first-round appearance at the Australian Open on Monday was that a triple whammy of back, hamstring and knee injuries had him in serious trouble, and that he’d lacked both the time and physical capacity to even consider breaking any of his rackets in a 10-minute practice hit. Such dire predictions proved unfounded in his straight sets hammering of Gastão Elias, which he won 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 to progress to the second round.
Earlier in the day a press release issued by tournament organisers claimed that Kyrgios was a 91% chance of winning, which was all well and good until you noted the same probability had been assigned to women’s fourth seed Simona Halep before she was trounced off the court by American Shelby Rogers. These prognostications, it was said, were based on “Elo ratings”. Jeff Lynne was not available for comment after the Halep business, but surely would have had fun watching Kyrgios.
Perhaps it’s best to start by humanising Elias, who looked like the member of an entirely different sub-species to Kyrgios as he struggled to return the local’s thumping first serve. Here goes: the 26-year-old shares with the Canberran a love of video games and a geographically unlikely path to big-time tennis, in that he’s the statistically the second-best Portuguese player ever behind tour veteran Joao Sousa. But that’s a bit like being voted the second coolest member of Kasabian behind that one who looks a bit like a cut-price version of the bloke from The Mighty Boosh.
The rest: Elias was so thoroughly outclassed that at one point Kyrgios loudly encouraged his opponent after he’d held his serve, as though observing some new tour protocol aimed at eliminating crowd bullying.
The very first point of this encounter was ominous, Kyrgios scythed an ace across court but had it overturned on a challenge from Elias, who didn’t bother when the replay went screaming straight down the middle without his intervention. With an early break and a second love service game, Kyrgios made it 3-0 after seven minutes, amusing the crowd by stopping at the fridge during the change of ends and throwing some of its contents into the first row – dinner and a show.
It all blew by a little too quickly to be appreciated as a genuine sporting contest, but the brutality of one Kyrgios forehand winner across the court drew a communal gasp from the crowd, such was its utter unplayability. If this is what Kyrgios can do under the cloud of injury he’ll be a sight to behold at full fitness in 2017.
The rest is merely detail. Elias finally held serve at the third attempt, though it’s a dubious distinction when your opponent lets you off a bagel by failing in an attempt to take your second serve on the half-volley. The Australian duly held his own serve to take the first set 6-1 in 19 minutes, and the pattern continued almost identically in the second.
There will be worse mismatches in this tournament but not many. In his worst patches of the first two sets Elias suffered nothing short of humiliation, and with one arrogant forehand slap down the middle Kyrgios almost added injury to insult, doing everything but decapitate his opponent.
With his fluorescent orange socks and sneakers Kyrgios made his feet look like giant traffic cones in this match, and there was one minor accident. On 29 minutes a hush descended on Hisense Arena as he called for the trainer, and from the towel pressed to his face you feared the worst, but a nosebleed was the only damage.
At that point Elias slumped into his chair for the five minutes it took to deal with the mishap but could never stanch his own bleeding in the match. The denouement was swift, and it was appropriate that the Australian served it out for one of his least burdensome grand slam wins yet. Not quite defeated are the suspicions Kyrgios is far from fit. Today he was so lacking for genuine competition it was impossible to tell.
