Nick Kyrgios doubles dream dashed as Slam streak ends alongside Thanasi Kokkinakis
Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis have lost their first Slam match as a team in 2022 as they went out in the third round of US Open men’s doubles.
The Australian Open champions were 8-0 across Melbourne and the US Open before facing 11th seeds Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliövaara for a place in the quarter-finals in New York.
And despite setting up two match points in the second set tiebreak, Kyrgios and Kokkinakis failed to convert before eventually losing 3-6, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (10-8) to the British-Finnish pair, leaving Kyrgios to focus on his singles campaign where he faces Karen Khachanov for a place in the semi-finals.
Currently ranked sixth in the live doubles race to the ATP Finals, the Australian duo are on course to qualify by points for the season-ending event in Turin, though would also be eligible to play by virtue of their Australian Open title regardless, with Kyrgios confirming at Wimbledon that they plan to make their event debut come November.
With Kyrgios still in contention in the singles at Flushing Meadows, there is the distinct possibility that he could compete in Turin in both singles and doubles. Whilst the world number 25 is 17th in the singles race at time of publication, he would leap to ninth with a run to the final in New York.
Moreover, winning the title would almost certainly allow him to qualify as a Slam champion ranked eighth to 20th in the world, unless Wimbledon winner Novak Djokovic overtakes him in the race before the Finals. Should Kyrgios compete in both Finals disciplines, he would be the first man to do so in the same year since Emilio Sanchez all the way back in 1990, when the competition was known as the ‘ATP World Tour Championships’, with the singles won by a 20-year-old Andre Agassi.
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