Mutua Madrid Open 2017: 5 matches we're looking forward to watching
One of Rafael Nadal’s favourite tournaments – and another one he holds a record at, the Mutua Madrid Open in the Spanish capital. One of the highlights of the clay court season in the lead-up to the only clay court Slam of the year, the Madrid Open has even been played on blue clay!
Rafael Nadal holds the record for most wins here, with four titles and a total of seven finals.
Now in the form of his life, he’ll contend for a record-extending fifth title.
Here are some big matches we’d love to see played out:
Andy Murray vs Nick Kyrgios
No. 1 Andy Murray has not been in ideal form of late, suffering earlier-than-usual and surprising losses at nearly every tournament, while Kyrgios appears to have calmed down significantly since his antics of the past few years, something he has credited partner and fellow tennis professional Ajla Tomljanovic with.
Kyrgios, seeded 16th in Madrid, took an occasionally-tense win over Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, trumping him 7-6, 6-4 and hitting a total of 14 aces en route to that straight sets win. That feat is remarkable considering it has been Kyrgios’ first match on clay in a year.
He’s up 17-4 this season, with 2016 having been his career-best season so far; the 22-year-old won 3 titles last year, and has appeared to also have sobered down.
The young Australian ace, who was recently tipped by former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt as a future Grand Slam winner – and indeed, has come fairly close to doing so, has yet to beat Andy Murray in his career so far, but this year beat Novak Djokovic twice – most recently in straight sets at the Indian Wells masters.
Murray is the sole member of the Big Four that Kyrgios is yet to beat – he has had wins over Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic. As it currently stands, Murray leads Kyrgios 5-0 on their head-to-head record, although they have had only one match over the past two seasons – at Wimbledon 2016, with Murray winning in straight sets each time.
We might be a bit wary of this considering Kyrgios has been seen to be struggling with injuries and was in pain even following his win over Baghdatis. That said, Murray has not had an ideal season either.
The Scot has one title so far this year, at the ATP500 Dubai Duty Free Championships, but even then was taxed by Germany’s Phillipp Kohlschreiber in the quarter-finals, coming close to crashing out.
Murray has not moved past past the Round of 16 at either of the Masters tournaments so far this year, and has not had a successful start to his clay season either, suffering a semi-final loss at the ATP500 Barcelona Open to Dominic Thiem.
30-year-old Murray has been the Australian’s Excalibur, so to speak, so given Murray’s slow start and Kyrgios’ fairly strong one, it’ll be interesting to see how this one pans out.