Hubert Hurkacz faced Nick Kyrgios in the quarter-final of the ATP Montreal Masters on Friday. The victory also put an end to Kyrgios’ nine-match winning streak. The Australian was struggling with his foot and hip and lost momentum halfway through.
The World number eight and polish star was breathing fire and won the match 7-6(4), 6-7(5), 6-1. Nick Kyrgios, who won the last 15 out of the 16 he played, entered the arena in red-hot form. The eighth seed managed to cling on to the Australian’s wrath and eventually reigned over him in the end.
Hurkacz will face Norway’s Casper Ruud in the semi-final of the ATP Montreal Masters. The first two sets were too intense that Kyrgios started losing momentum from the third set. The Pole eighth seed fought back with all grit and the Australian faced physical strains while giving it back to the Polish Tennis star.
Ruud, who defeated Hurkacz in May, will once again testify against the eighth seed. The Miami 2021 champion will look to be in the best of forms to reign over fourth seed Ruud. Hurkacz dominantly won the first-set in a tie-breaker. And the Canberra-born star gave his all and clinched the second set. The Wroclaw-born eighth seed clinched the third set 6-1 to win the match.
Hurkacz alone accounted for 20 of the aces in a match that comprised of 39 aces in total. He said after the match that Kyrgios was a tough opponent and has been incredible for the past few weeks. Polish added that the competition was too high. He further added that every single match was 50-50
“Over the last two months, Nick has been playing incredibly,” the Polish added. “The first two sets were pretty level but in the third maybe he was a bit injured and that hurt his serve. We were both serving well so the percentages were small. The level of competition is really high. There’s little difference between players ranked 10 and 40. Every match is 50-50,” Hurkacz concluded.
