Nick Kyrgios crashes out of Australian Open warmup in ugly meltdown

Nick Kyrgios smashed a racquet, hurled it into the crowd and was hit with a point penalty during a fiery and frustrated exit from the Murray River Open on Friday.

The controversial Aussie star was raging about a left knee injury for most of his 6-3, 6-4 loss to Borna Coric before his frustrations boiled over late in the second set.

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After losing his serve to go down 4-5 in the second, Kyrgios smashed his racquet and chucked it into the empty stands.

The chair umpire then hit him with a point penalty after he’d received an audible obscenity warning earlier in the game.

Kyrgios appeared to be moving freely early in his match, however things went downhill after his serve was broken for the first time.

He called for the trainer after dropping the first set 6-3 and complained of pain in his left knee.

“It’s f***ing sore. I can’t land on my leg,” Kyrgios said.

“I can’t serve without pain ... when I land it feels unstable.

“I’ll probably just play one more game. I’m serving at like 170 (km/h) instead of 220.”

Kyrgios managed to play on but showed little effort on Coric’s service games.

“Not an overly invested game there from Kyrgios,” one commentator said on Channel Nine.

“He doesn’t seem too into it, really. I get the impression he could be moving a bit more.”

Kyrgios was sporting a heavy compression bandage on his left knee throughout the match.

Ash Barty moves into semi-finals

Meanwhile, Ash Barty’s successful comeback has continued, with the World No.1 surviving a third-set shootout to advance to the semi-finals of the Yarra Valley Classic.

Barty edged American Shelby Rogers 7-5 2-6 10-4 in a deciding match tiebreak on Friday to set up a potential last-four blockbuster with 23-times grand-slam winner Serena Williams.

Clutch under pressure, Barty raised her game in the cut-throat breaker after losing five games in a row to drop the second set.

“I feel like I did well to hang in there at times and then Shelby was able to hit me off the court during other times,” Barty said.

“It was an important start to that third-set tiebreak in a bit of an unusual sort of scoring system for us.

“But I'm happy to get through and get another opportunity tomorrow.”

Barty also found it tough to adjust to indoor conditions, after the roof was closed because of rain in Melbourne.

“Regardless of what conditions you're dealt with, it's about me coming out here and trying to do the best that I can,” the top seed said.

“There were certainly some challenges today but I was happy to click into gear and find a way in that third set.”

with AAP

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