Rafael Nadal survived an early break and saved two third-set breakpoints Thursday to advance to his 11th semifinals at the BNP Paribas Open.
Nadal’s 7-6(0), 5-7, 6-4 win over Nick Kyrgios on Stadium Court puts the Spanish tennis star into a matchup on Saturday with the winner of Thursday’s late match between Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and defending champion Cam Norrie of Great Britain.
Nadal is now 19-0 in 2022, which is the best start to a season.
Only Novak Djokovic has had a longer unbeaten streak to start a season since 1990.
The match had an ugly ending, though, as Kyrgios, who had been jawing with the umpire throughout the match, asked him to control the crowd better, whipped his racket into the ground and hit the back wall a few feet from a ducking ball kid.
The ending marred what was a highly entertaining match.
It appeared early that Kyrgios would be the one to break the streak. As he had throughout this tournament, Kyrgios played some of his best tennis at the start of the match. He went up a break on Nadal early and seemed to thrive off the high-energy atmosphere inside the mostly full 16,100-seat stadium.
