Tue, Aug 06, 2019 page16

• Kyrgios touts ‘new path’ after Citi title

  • AP, WASHINGTON
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  Nick Kyrgios dealt with back, knee and forearm issues during the Citi Open. Between doubles and singles, he played every day, all week. He saved a match point. He beat a pair of top-10 opponents, the men seeded No. 1 and No. 3 at the hard-court tournament.

  In the end, he won the title, the sixth of his enigmatic career, one filled with big victories against the “Big Three,” but also fines and controversy and a probationary period and so many ups and downs for a guy who is still just 24.

  And then, after beating Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/4) in Sunday’s final of a hard-court tournament that serves as a tuneup for the US Open, Kyrgios talked about how he is a changed man.

  

  Nick Kyrgios returns against Daniil Medvedev during the men’s singles final at the Citi Open at the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center in Washington on Sunday.

  Photo: EPA-EFE

  “I just wanted to clean myself up and have healthier habits,” Kyrgios said, using his fingers to signal quotation marks around “clean.”

  “It’s only the beginning and it showed this week by winning this tournament,” he said.

  He spoke about how proud he was — not so much about the way he played tennis to earn a trophy, but the way he lived his life when he was not playing.

  

  Jessica Pegula gets a kiss from her dog, Maddie, after defeating Camila Giorgi in the women’s singles final at the Citi Open in Washington on Sunday.

  Photo: EPA-EFE

  “I had the same routine every day and I just felt — I felt actually like a traditional tennis player this week,” said Kyrgios, who most certainly is not the sort who generally would be described that way.

  Whether that will become a regular occurrence for the Australian remains to be seen. He said so himself.

  “I feel like I’ve made major strides,” Kyrgios said. “I’m just going to take it one day at a time and hopefully I can continue on this new path.”

  In the women’s competition, Jessica Pegula won her first WTA title.

  Her parents, who own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, are used to seeing the athletes they root for come up short, but their daughter held a trophy after the 25-year-old picked up the biggest win of her professional tennis career by beating Camila Giorgi of Italy 6-2, 6-2.

  “It’s been extremely gratifying. This is what you work for: to win tournaments. It sounds cliche, [but] the journey makes it all that much sweeter,” said Pegula, who recently began working with David Witt, Venus Williams’ former coach.

  “This week, though, it felt different. This final, I felt like I was just ready,” said Pegula, who dropped to her knees on court after the final point, then celebrated with her dog, Maddie, during the trophy ceremony. “I was like: You know what? You’re going to go out there and you’re going to win.” She had a 4-8 record and had not reached the quarter-finals anywhere this season until winning five consecutive matches in Washington.

  “We always say she’s our first sports team — and our favorite. People often ask us which team we like better, which sport we like better, and so she’s always been our first team and our favorite team,” Pegula’s mother, Kim, said after the Bills’ practice at their training camp site in suburban Rochester, New York. “I said: ‘She set the tone for the season now, right?’”

  The Bills have made the post-season just once since 2000; and the Sabres have an eight-year playoff drought.
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