Nick Kyrgios played some excellent tennis in a heat-stricken Washington to lift his seventh career trophy after beating Yoshihito Nishioka in the final of the 2022 Citi Open.
Both of these players did really well to reach the final of the ATP 500 tournament in Washington. Kyrgios disappointed the home crowd multiple times, beating American players Marcos Giron, Tommy Paul, Reilly Opelka, and Frances Tiafoe, before also eliminating Sweden's Mikael Ymer.
Nishioka, on the other hand, bested Jenson Brooksby, before taking on Alex de Minaur, Karen Khachanov, Daniel Evans, and also the top-seeded Andrey Rublev.
Unfortunately for the Japanese player, he played his worst match of the week in the final. Kyrgios, on the other hand, did not play his best match in the final, but he played a fairly solid one that was good enough to take down Nishioka.
It started well for Kyrgios, who broke Nishioka's serve already in the first game of the match, and it went downhill from there for the Japanese player. Nishioka found his groove not long after that, cruising in most of his service games, but the Australian did the same.
Whenever Nishioka pulled closer to Kyrgios, the Australian found a serve or a winner to stay ahead. He ventured to the net quite often as well which worked well. As a result, Kyrgios won the first set 6-4, establishing an important advantage in the match.
Nishioka was quite unsure what to do in most rallies as the Australian had a counter to everything. The major problem for him was overcoming the serve which did too much damage early in the rally, making it hard for him to recover.
Ultimately, Kyrgios easily cruised to an easy win. He won the match 6-4, 6-3 to secure his first trophy in three years, with the last one coming in Washington as well. He's now a two-time champion at the event after winning it in 2019.