NEW YORK -- At one point, he lost control of his racket after an errant forehand and it skittered down the baseline, winding up in a dark corner of Arthur Ashe Stadium next to a pot of red flowers. Later, he cracked that Yonex EZONE Ai 98 racket. He fairly sauntered up toward the net on one occasion before blasting a violent overhead. After he lost the second set, he appeared to be sleeping in his changeover chair. He even complained rather harshly about the late-arriving fans.
But for those of you tennis aficionados shamelessly hoping for a Nick Kyrgios meltdown -- and you know who you were -- it never quite came in his 7-5, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 loss against Andy Murray on Tuesday night. There were flashes of brilliance, glimpses of what could be for Kyrgios in this sport, but he couldn't shake some of the haters.
With a suspended ban from the ATP Tour looming, the volatile 20-year-old Australian used some colorful language Tuesday evening and made numerous frantic, antic gestures. But Kyrgios never quite crossed the invisible line. He was warned once by chair umpire Carlos Ramos, but ultimately failed to draw the kind of code violation that would have cost him an additional $25,000 fine and a 28-day suspension from the ATP World Tour at his next officially sanctioned event. (The US Open, because it is not technically an ATP event, cannot trigger the additional penalties that were attached to his unsavory on-court comments to Stan Wawrinka recently in Montreal.)
Coincidentally (or not), Kyrgios is 0-3 since.
"I'd like to think that I'm going to learn from [the recent incidents]. I think I have," Kyrgios told reporters after the match. "I think I'm on the right path. I don't think any of us in this room right now were perfect at 20. Speak up if you were."
Murray, who has defended Kyrgios in recent weeks, might see him again in a few weeks when Great Britain and Australia meet in the Davis Cup semifinals in Scotland.
"I managed to get the momentum straight back in the fourth," Murray said in his on-court postmatch interview. "He's unpredictable. He can play all of the shots. He's a fantastic athlete."
The match had to pain legendary Aussie Lleyton Hewitt, the 2001 champion here, who sat in Kyrgios' box as a show of solidarity and recently invited Kyrgios to the Bahamas to help him prepare for the Open. Hewitt, who is expected to be the future Australian Davis Cup captain, might be seeing a lot of this going forward.
After a teenaged Kyrgios upset two-time champion Rafael Nadal a year ago in the fourth round at Wimbledon, some people in the know predicted Grand Slam singles titles for him. At the moment, however, Kyrgios just isn't fully equipped to take it the distance against similarly talented but more consistent players.
He made some dreadful shot selections. And Kyrgios' jarring wardrobe color combinations even drew criticism from ESPN analyst John McEnroe.
In truth, Kyrgios played reasonably well. He was up an early service break in both the first and third sets but could not sustain his momentum. Similarly, after winning the third set, Kyrgios was broken almost immediately by Murray and exited the match with an emphatic whimper.
Murray entered the match with a 3-0 head-to-head career lead, having won all eight sets between them. The 28-year-old Scot beat Kyrgios comfortably in straight sets earlier this year at the Australian Open and French Open.
The match featured a pattern of long, artful rallies, many ending with a Kyrgios error. A number of his drop shots sat up too high and, more than a few times, he swung for the fences when a single the other way would have sufficed.
Kyrgios managed to create 14 break-point opportunities, but converted only three.
"It was a very tricky match. I just fought hard, mixed it up and was able to get through."