First thing that comes to mind when these two were drawn in the last 16 at Flushing Meadows was which Nick and which Daniil will show up. Both are the definition of blowing hot and cold this year. Although he hasn’t won a major this year, Daniil won in Los Cabos, his one and only title this year, whilst Nick has had his best season yet. Nick has shockingly good results such as reaching the Wimbledon final with shockingly poor performances like his ouster from Cincinnati by Taylor Fritz. All in all it would be a great encounter. If ever Medvedev was to win this one, he had to match the second serve tramp card by the Aussie. He did just that , getting 22 aces in process. The first set tie break was a nervy one. Check out 7-6 in the breaker. Nick will pick off any loose second serve without hesitation because he is the kind of player who has nerves of steel when it comes to shot making. Watch also how he saves set point crucially at 8-7 Medvedev. The backhand down the line was the more difficult shot than the cross court one but he still chose that shot. As just rewards he took the first set.

As second set goes, the number one seed got the better end of the rallies. Check out 1-0 Daniil first point on the Kyrgios racquet. Now as far as serve and volley play is concerned, this is as poor as it gets. One can see Daniil moving to his left court a mile away and the backhand volley should have been down the line again from the Aussie. That set being done and dusted, one would expect it to go the distance, but Nick had other ideas. Just look at the slice drop shot in the first game of the third, 30-15. Nothing like that to get the juices in your veins flowing and letting your opponent know you are in charge of the match. Now Nick is usually very loud in matches, but in this one he was laser focused and quiet by his standards, maybe the gravity of facing the best player in the world dawning on him. But you kind of can’t help but commiserate with Kyrgios when he went down at 1-0(15-30). Thankfully he recovered(Alejandro Davidovich Fokina didn’t earlier in the day in his match with Berrettini) and it didn’t affect his play at all. At set point 5-3(40-15), it looked as though he went to the well one too many times with the drop shot. Daniil’s execution of his own drop shot wasn’t up to it , fortunately for Nick. Kyrgios would win the fourth 6-2, outdoing Daniil in the winners department which was key. In ousting the defending champ, Kyrgios reaches his maiden quarter final in New York and will face Daniil’s compatriot Karen Khachanov.