Big favorites go home early: Kyrgios knocks out Medvedev, Alcaraz ‘couldn’t handle the pressure’ | sport

Alcaraz, winner in the first round in Montreal bye reached the final in the last two tournaments he participated in, in Umag and Hamburg. He lost to Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti respectively. In the round of 16 of the Montreal tournament, Paul will face Croatian Marin Cilic. Botic van de Zandschulp will play in the second round against Britain’s Cameron Norrie later today.

World number 4 Alcaraz took the first set after a tie-break. The second set was also not decided after twelve games. In the tie-break it was a great fight, with Paul (ATP 34) winning. In the fourth game of the third set, Alcaraz returned his serve and he could not overcome this deficit. In the eighth game, on his own serve, the Spaniard cleared four match points, but a game later he was still hit. The match lasted almost three and a half hours.

“It was the first time I couldn’t handle the pressure,” the 19-year-old Spanish teenager from Alcaraz said on social media afterwards.

In the next game on center court, the world number 1 also lost. In the first set, the Russian and Kyrgios kept all their service games, after which Medvedev managed to win the tie-break. Then the Australian Wimbledon runner-up struck and so a third set had to be played here too. In it, Kyrgios faced break points early on, only to waltz over Medvedev after knocking them out and finishing 6-2.

Medvedev was the defending Masters Tournament champion. Last year, the Russian won the title in Canada by beating American Reilly Opelka in the final. “It’s the fourth time we’ve played against each other and I’ve been successful against him in the past,” Kyrgios said afterwards. ,,But he had already beaten me once. I feel like we know each other’s game well. I’m not the kind of player who looks at the rankings when he starts a game, it’s just about who I’m playing against and what balls they give me.”

Kyrgios had a good plan to play against the Russian. ,,I had in mind how I was going to play, lots of serves and volleys and aggressive play from behind.

_{(text continues below images)}

Iga Swiatek has convincingly reached the knockout stages of the WTA tournament in Toronto. The Polish world number one was far too strong in Canada for Australian Ajla Tomljanovic (72nd in the world rankings): 6-1 6-2. After just over an hour, 21-year-old Swiatek immediately scored the first match point.

Demi Schuurs started well in doubles in Toronto. With her partner Desirae Krawczyk from the United States, the 29-year-old Dutchwoman won against Russian Liudmila Samsonova and Italian Martina Trevisan: 6-1 6-2. In the next round, the Chinese duo Xu Yifan and Yang Zhaoxuan wait.

Watch all of our tennis videos here.