Nick Kyrgios had to change his shorts during his second round win. Photo / Getty
Nick Kyrgios had to change his shorts during his second round win. Photo / Getty
Nick Kyrgios has overcome a wardrobe malfunction and serving arm soreness to safely progress to the Australian Open third round in Melbourne.
The colourful youngster swept aside Uruguayan claycourt specialist Pablo Cuevas 6-4 7-5 7-6 (7-2) in one hour and 58 minutes on Wednesday night despite engaging in a runningbattle with his own entourage over a problematic pair of shorts.
The pockets were seemingly not deep enough to contain balls, leaving Kyrgios needing to fetch one from a ballboy between first and second serves.
He fumed at his camp for taking a set and a half to find a replacement pair before finally taking a toilet break almost an hour into the contest to change pants.
Cuevas protested at chair umpire Carlos Ramos, but to no avail as Kyrgios returned a new player to dominate the rest of the match and set up a third-round clash with Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych.
Commentators called the brief stoppage a game changer, with Roger Rasheed saying "that's a mistake by the central umpire" and former world No.1 Jim Courier even casually accusing Kyrgios of "tanking the last service game" before changing shorts.
In reality, Cuevas was never really in the contest.
The pockets of Nick Kyrgios' shorts, left, were seemingly not deep enough to contain balls. Photo / Getty
His outfit woes aside, Kyrgios was in complete control.
Fined US$3000 (A$4340) earlier on Wednesday for dropping the F-bomb in his first-round win over Pablo Carreno Busta, Kyrgios stayed out of strife in taking down the South American in straight sets.
He bit his lip and showed true grit to save break point after copping a late overrule from Ramos in the opening set.
One break of his own, coming in the third game, was enough for Kyrgios to secure the set, clinching it with a lovely wide-angled second-serve ace.
He forced another early break in the second set, letting out a huge roar - a mix of frustration and delight - after taking command of the match.
Kyrgios peeled off three straight games after his service lapse to nab the second set and gained another break to go 2-1 up in the third.
The 29th seed required a medical timeout to have his right arm massaged and had to stave off successive set points after dropping serve for the second time and then finding himself down 4-5 and 15-40.
But after regrouping, Kyrgios closed out the match in a tiebreaker with a ferocious backhand crosscourt winner.
He finished with 19 aces, 50 winners and just 27 unforced errors.
Kyrgios and Berdych have never previously met, but the world No.6 - a semi-finalist at Melbourne Park for the past two years - shapes as the Australian's biggest test yet.
