Sports

Fiery Kyrgios powers to Australian Open second round

Nick Kyrgios has maintained his perfect record in the first round of the Australian Open, making short work of Brazilian opponent Rogerio Dutra Silva.

Australia's top hope of ending a 40-year wait for a home-grown winner at Melbourne Park eased into the second round with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 win over the world number 100, helped by 16 aces.

Kyrgios will play Viktor Troicki on Wednesday after the Serbian denied Australian Alex Bolt wildcard in five sets on day one of the Open.

Fellow Australians Samantha Stosur, Jason Kubler, Alex Bolt and Jaimee Fourlis were not so lucky, dropping out of the first round — but Matthew Ebden, Olivia Rogowska and John Millman join Kyrgios in going through.

Kyrgios was irrepressible on serve, railing aces that topped out at 217 kilometres an hour.

Without strapping on his troubled knee, the 22-year-old played with freedom — and crucially for his injury issues, got off court in just 95 minutes.

Kyrgios' four matches on the way to the Brisbane International title means he's played more competitive tennis than most of his Open rivals.

Having backed off the training since arriving at Melbourne Park, the quick dismissal of Dutra Silva allows his trainers to maintain control of his workload in the early stages of the fortnight-long event.

In the first two sets, Kyrgios showed all the hallmarks of a maturing player, as he has pledged to become.

He cruised through the opening set in under half an hour, slamming seven aces and making just seven unforced errors.

Kyrgios admits he was 'very nervous' before match

The fiery Kyrgios is often controversial, and today was no different — he was slapped with a code violation after swearing at the crowd as they heckled his serve.

He went on to save a break point, and had a conversation with umpire at the change of ends.

"All you have to do is say, 'Please be quiet when the player is serving'," Kyrgios said.

"If you did it the first time, he wouldn't have done it a second time, correct?"

Dutra Silva snapped Kyrgios' seven-game winning streak early in the second set, holding to make the score 2-1, but was only just clinging on.

The 23-minute second set was even quicker, with Kyrgios making just six errors of any kind.

The 33-year-old found his serving rhythm in the third set but came unstuck in the seventh game, dropping to 0-40 on serve and handing a break to Kyrgios.

Smelling blood, the Canberran closed the match out on his next service match, before confessing anxiety before taking the court.

"I was very nervous coming our here for the first match," he said.

"I don't think I played as well as I did in Brisbane.

"I knew today I was facing a tough competitor. I'm just happy to be here, riding confidence from Brisbane … and playing well."

AAP

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ABC .net

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