After missing much of this year Nick Kyrgios made a return to tennis at the Stuttgart Open where he played Yibing Wu.
The Australian has been out of action since January when he underwent knee surgery that saw him miss both the Australian Open and all the time since then. The Australian initially planned to be back around Indian Wells but things didn't go as well as the injury was quite serious per his own admission in a recent interview.
It became fairly obvious that he would be making his return on grass skipping over the whole clay season which by now is common practice for him. The first event among those is the Stuttgart Open, a 250 event with a pretty good field. The first match was against Yibing Wu, the first Chinese player to ever win an ATP trophy.
It was a typical Kyrgios match on grass without much action and plenty of short points. Neither player had any issues early in the match but when it was time to force a tiebreak, Kyrgios messed up. Wu run away with the opening set despite 11 aces from Kyrgios and only 4 lost points behind his first serve. The problem was the second one as he won only 7 out of 15 of those points.
Wu didn't play a perfect match as Kyrgios had two break points in the first set but didn't use either. The second set opened comfortably for both as they both dominated on their serve. Kyrgios pushed a bit more but couldn't find too many chances early.
Wu would get another chance in the 8th game of the match with another lapse of focus of Kyrgios and some more errors. He took the crucial break and then finished off the match 6-3 in his favour. A great win for Wu, but also an expected one as Kyrgios slowly works his way to good form. He had major problemS after missing his first serve in this one.
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