Nick Kyrgios broke Alexander Zverev’s service at 3-3 in the deciding set for a 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win yesterday, giving his Australia Green team the winning edge over Germany at the Hopman Cup.
Earlier, Russian-born Daria Gavrilova beat Sabine Lisicki 6-2, 6-2 to give Australia Green the early lead in the mixed teams tournament, part of the Australian Open Series ahead of the first Grand Slam of the year, which begins on Jan. 18 at Melbourne Park.
Kyrgios and Gavrilova later combined for a 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 (match tiebreak) win in mixed doubles to complete a 3-0 win.
Photo: AFP
The 18-year-old Zverev, at 83rd, is the youngest player in the ATP rankings top 100.
“I really like the kid,” the 20-year-old Kyrgios said. “He has got a great future ahead and he is a great athlete for his size, and moves well and serves big.”
For the first time in the Hopman Cup’s 28-year history, Australia is being represented by two teams. Lleyton Hewitt and Jarmila Wolfe-Gajdosova of Australia Gold were to play Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova and Jiri Vesely later yesterday.
Hewitt, who is to retire after the Australian Open, has already been named captain of Australia’s David Cup team.
At the Brisbane International, former Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova overcame Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer, recovering from 4-3 and 0-40 down on her serve in the third set to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Cibulkova missed four months of competition last year to undergo Achilles tendon surgery.
The Slovakian is to next face the winner of the first-round match between former No. 1 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and eighth-seeded Roberta Vinci of Italy, who upset Serena Williams in the US Open semi-finals last year, ending Williams’s attempt at a calendar-year Grand Slam.
In other first-round matches yesterday, Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky became the first seeded player eliminated when she was beaten by Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a 2013 finalist in Brisbane, 6-2, 6-1.
American Varvara Lepchenko defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-2, 6-1 to set up a meeting with last year’s Wimbledon finalist Garbine Muguruza, who is seeded second.
In an all-French matchup, Alize Cornet beat Kristina Mladenovic 6-3, 6-4.
Top-seeded Roger Federer and second-seeded Kei Nishikori of Japan have first-round byes in the men’s draw at Brisbane.
Federer might not play until Wednesday, and when he does, he is to have former No. 3 Ivan Ljubicic as his coach for the first time. The 17-time Grand Slam champion hired the Croatian to work alongside head coach Severin Luthi this year after Stefan Edberg opted not to continue with a third year in Federer’s camp.
“What I like about him, he is very direct — he lets you know what he sees and thinks,” Federer said. “We train very well together. He has got good insight. He has played against a bunch of players that I have played against. We played against each other over 15 times as well, so he knows my game very well.”
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
Taiwanese badminton superstar Lee Yang broke down in tears after publicly retiring from the sport on Sunday. The two-time Olympic gold medalist held a retirement ceremony at the Taipei Arena after the final matches of the Taipei Open. Accompanied by friends, family and former badminton partners, Lee burst into tears while watching a video celebrating key moments in his professional sporting career that also featured messages from international players such as Malaysia’s Teo Ee Yi, Hong Kong’s Tang Chun-man, and Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan. “I hope that in the future when the world thinks about me, they will
Former Formosa Dreamers player Ilkan Karaman was killed in a traffic accident in Datca, Turkey, Turkish media reported yesterday. He was 34. The former Turkish national team player was reportedly hit by a car, the driver of which was allegedly drunk, while he was standing on a sidewalk, Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported. Karaman and his friends were on their way to the beach town of Dalaman to go scuba diving when they stopped at a gas station to buy gasoline, it reported. Karaman was hit by the car while waiting on a sidewalk as his friends were buying gasoline, it
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS