Guto Miguel beat Nick Kyrgios 3-2 in quarters (21-12, 15-10, 13-16, 15-21, 2-0 in Sudden Death) on Thursday, claiming the first win of his professional big-stage career in the third match of UTS Rio presented by XP\u2019s opening night at the Maracan\u00e3zinho.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The 17-year-old Brazilian, ranked 824th and playing in front of his home crowd, raced through the first quarter 21-12, winning 60 percent of his service points and 63 percent on return while making just six unforced errors to Kyrgios\u2019 13. He extended the lead in the second, closing it out 15-10 on a single deciding point after Kyrgios won only 25 percent of his own service points and needed an average of eight seconds to close out each point he did win.<\/p>\n
Kyrgios, a former Wimbledon finalist and the most experienced player in the field, responded in the third quarter, reeling off a six-point run and an ace on his way to a 16-13 win. Guto Miguel saved three quarter points along the way before finally conceding it.<\/p>\n
The Australian pushed the match to a fourth quarter, extending a nine-point run \u2013 the longest of the match \u2013 and successfully converting his bonus card to close it out 21-15. Guto Miguel again saved three quarter points before it slipped away, levelling the match at two quarters apiece and forcing a fifth and final quarter: Sudden Death.<\/p>\n
First steps of Guto Miguel on the big stage<\/p>\n
Guto Miguel did not miss in the decider, closing out the match 2-0.<\/p>\n
Despite splitting the four regulation quarters two apiece, Guto Miguel finished with more total points won than Kyrgios, 66 to 59, produced more winners, 15 to 11, and made fewer unforced errors, 31 to 36. His most telling number was defensive: across the match he saved six quarter points, three each in the third and fourth quarters, repeatedly denying Kyrgios a route back into the match before closing it out himself in Sudden Death.<\/p>\n
The win is the first of Guto Miguel\u2019s professional career in singles, a breakthrough on home soil that comes five weeks after he became the first Brazilian to win a Roland Garros boys\u2019 singles title. For Kyrgios, a 2022 Wimbledon finalist and seven-time ATP title winner, the loss is an opening-night upset against a player ranked 824th in the world.<\/p>\n
Guto Miguel\u2019s reward is a rematch with the format itself on Friday, when he faces Brandon Nakashima. Kyrgios must regroup fast \u2013 his next assignment is Jo\u00e3o Fonseca, and the rest of a Rio crowd already reminded of what this teenager can do.<\/p>\n
Day 1 results:
\u2022\u00a0Tallon Griekspoor d. Corentin Moutet 3-2 (14-11, 13-14, 16-11, 10-15, 3-2 SD)
\u2022\u00a0Brandon Nakashima d. Francisco Cer\u00fandolo (1) 3-1 (13-11, 10-18, 16-15, 12-11)
\u2022\u00a0Guto Miguel d. Nick Kyrgios 3-2 (21-12, 15-10, 13-16, 15-21, 2-0 SD)
\u2022\u00a0Cameron Norrie d. Corentin Moutet 3-1 (14-12, 21-9, 12-14, 16-14)<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s schedule:
\u2022 Guto Miguel v Brandon Nakashima 6:00 pm
\u2022 Jo\u00e3o Fonseca (2) v Tallon Griekspoor 7:00 pm
\u2022 Francisco Cer\u00fandolo (1) v Cameron Norrie 8:00 pm
\u2022 Jo\u00e3o Fonseca (2) v Nick Kyrgios 9:00 pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guto Miguel beat Nick Kyrgios 3-2 in quarters (21-12, 15-10, 13-16, 15-21, 2-0 in Sudden Death) on Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-808238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}