It was a sprint to the finish in what was otherwise a marathon for Nick Kyrgios.
Having not played competitive tennis since the Australian Open, going over three hours and two days was a test of his lack of match fitness, but the Australian prevailed on the big stage once again as he defeated 21st-seeded Frenchman Ugo Humbert 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 9-7.
The match, like most Kyrgios performances brought the drama, having been delayed overnight with the score tied at 3-3 in the fifth.
The Australian seemed to be a little stiff when the players first returned to court on Wednesday and was lucky not to receive a code violation when serving down 3-4 in the final set.
Set off in the previous game by a mobile phone going off, the Australian reacted angrily to crowd noise by loudly saying "what the f*** are you doing?" to members of the crowd.
He then hit a ball into the crowd in frustration but also avoided a code violation for ball abuse.
At 6-6 in the final set there was even more drama. Kyrgios let out a pained yell as he collapsed to the turf, his legs going out from underneath him when Hubert played a crosscourt forehand in behind him.
As Humbert checked on the Australian, the chair umpire again overlooked multiple swear words.
The match had become a shootout with both Kyrgios and Humbert banging down aces and unreturnable serves, seemingly destined to go on like that forever until one of them blinked.
Humbert was the one who blinked as he made uncharacteristic unforced errors to give Kyrgios triple break point.
The Australian broke on the third one, but despite his massive serve the match was not over.
Humbert got himself to 0-30 in the next game with a searing return winner and Kyrgios was forced to fend off two break back points, one with a flat backhand winner down the line, before he served it out to advance to the second round.
More to come.
