Australian Nick Kyrgios came from a set down to beat Canadian Milos Raonic 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (3), 6-3 on Friday in the third round at Wimbledon.
The Australian double-faulted three times in the final game of the first set but rode his big serve the rest of the way, finishing with 34 aces to beat the Canadian on Court No. 2. He didn’t fare much better with his replay challenges.
At 6-5 down on Court No. 2, Kyrgios double-faulted on the first point and then stared toward the line judge and chair umpire after his second serve was called long. When the chair umpire asked if he wanted to use one of his Hawk-Eye challenges, the Australian thought for a second before replying: “Actually, umm, yeah, maybe not.”
That drew laughter from the crowd, which then gasped when Kyrgios double-faulted again at 0,30 and 15,40. On that last point, he again looked up at the chair umpire after the first serve before challenging the second. Hawk-Eye, however, showed it was well long.
As always, Kyrgios put on quite a show along the way. He received a code violation for throwing his racket so hard to the ground that it bounced into the crowd, and was told to turn his Wimbledon headband inside out because the green-and-purple stripes on it were too colorful.
Wimbledon sells both headbands and armbands in its official stores at the All England Club.
Kyrgios is best known for beating Rafael Nadal here in the fourth round last year at the age of 19. He will next play Richard Gasquet of France.
French Open champion Stan Wawrinka is into the fourth round of Wimbledon after beating Fernando Verdasco in straight sets.
The fourth-seeded Wawrinka won 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 in less than two hours on Court 1.
Meanwhile, Richard Gasquet of France improved to 5-0 against Grigor Dimitrov by beating the 11th-seeded Bulgarian 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 on Centre Court to make it to the second week of Wimbledon for the first time since 2012.
The 16th-seeded Belgian beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 on Friday, reaching the final 16 of a Grand Slam for only the second time. Goffin is the fourth Belgian man in the Open era to get this far at Wimbledon, after Dick Norman, Xavier Malisse and Olivier Rochus.
Wimbledon began with a minute of silence on Friday as Britain paused to honor the victims of the attack in Tunisia, where an Islamic extremist opened fire on beachgoers at a resort.
British tourists made up 30 of the 38 victims of last Friday’s attack.
Visitors across the All England Club stopped in silence at noon, with the crowd on Henman Hill rising to their feet and ball boys lining up alongside the courts. The start of play on the outside courts was pushed back to 12.15 p.m. instead of the normal time of 11.30 a.m.
Queen Elizabeth II and British Prime Minister David Cameron also observed a minute of silence at noon on Friday.
