Nick Kyrgios swats aside Liam Broady in Australian Open first round

Nick Kyrgios is simultaneously an open book and an enigma. He says what he thinks and does the unthinkable. Sometimes that comes in the form of throwing a tantrum or berating the chair umpire. Other times it is raising funds for communities devastated by bushfires or becoming the pandemic voice of reason. To this day it is unclear whether he has a sizeable chip on his shoulder or genuinely does not give a toss.

A similar indecision can also be felt by the viewer, of wanting to both like and dislike him and flirting with both in equal measure. Love him or hate, though, one cannot help but watch him.

Kyrgios had missed all the warm-up events to his ninth Australian Open after problems with asthma and then coming down with Covid-19, which he said had him sleeping 17 hours a day. The Australian was underdone when he rolled into Melbourne on a private jet on Sunday ahead of this Tuesday-evening opener. Nobody knew how he would fare against Liam Broady, the British qualifier who has never before made the main draw of this grand slam and has not progressed past the second round in any other.

Unfortunately for the 28-year-old Broady and his supporters at home in Stockport, his debut was short-lived, ending in a 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 defeat in one hour and 54 minutes. For the local favourite up the other end, this potential banana skin of a match morphed into a warm-up for his round-two antagonist, Daniil Medvedev, who swept past Switzerland’s Henri Laaksonen in straight sets. The Russian world No 2 was runner-up here last year and won the 2021 US Open, and yet this will mean little to Kyrgios, who beat him both times they played in 2019. He holds the same winning record over the world No 1, his arch-nemesis and recent “bromance” buddy,