By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, March 17, 2022
Unleashing his wrecking ball serve and unsettling soft touch, Nick Kyrgios put Rafael Nadal at risk of his first loss of the season today.
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The fourth-seeded Spaniard applied the shrewd squeeze play to create safe space.
Nadal fended off nemesis Kyrgios 7-6(0), 5-7, 6-4 in a wildly entertaining Indian Wells quarterfinal to raise his record to a perfect 19-0 on the season.
Nadal, who often stands deep near the back wall to return against explosive servers, gave the Aussie a completely different look midway through the final set moving closer to the baseline to challenge first and second serves at times.
Wild card Kyrgios tried the drop shot-lob combination platter, but Nadal feasted on it throwing down a smash for break point in the seventh game of the final set. Creeping closer to the baseline to return, Nadal may have got in Kyrgios' head as the Aussie blinked hitting his fifth double fault to gift the break and a 4-3 lead. Nadal reeled off eight straight points on his serve to close out his sixth win in nine meetings with Kyrgios.
Afterward, Nadal told Tennis Channel's Paul Annacone he altered his return position to give Kyrgios a different look and believes shifting sightlines helped carve out the key break.
"I think I didn’t have a lot of opportunities for a while on the return," Nadal said. "And I decided to go in a little bit more to try to change a little bit his visual position and try to create something different on him and I think it worked.
"I was able to be quick with the hands and had some great returns with the first serve and with the second. I went in, but sometimes I was able to come back behind [the baseline] especially when the wind was helping."
Today, Nadal struggled on serve at times hitting seven double faults. But the Grand Slam king found both his comfort zone when it counted winning 12 of his last 13 service points, while making Kyrgios confront awkward areas of court as well.
"It's all about finding the solution in every moment in this sport," Nadal said. "It’s not only about how you feel comfortable, it’s about how you can make the opponent feel uncomfortable too."
Photo credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty