Nick Kyrgios' brilliant act for elderly fan after nasty incident

Nick Kyrgios has put his class on display at the Citi Open in Washington, offering an elderly fan a nice souvenir after she was hit by a ball.

In action against Tommy Paul in the US capital on Wednesday, Kyrgios hit a wayward return that bounced into the stands and struck the spectator.

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While the ball wasn't hit particularly hard, the woman appeared shaken by the incident and clutched her head.

Paul immediately went over the check on the fan as fellow spectators comforted her, before Kyrgios went over to the other side of the court to do likewise.

After realising that the woman was fine, the Aussie star offered her one of his towels to apologise.

While the gesture was a nice one, the elderly fan looked a bit confused and could be seen asking the woman sitting next to her, "what's this for?"

The Aussie star advanced to the round of 16 with a 6-3 6-4 victory, continuing his sparkling form in recent weeks.

Kyrgios has clearly been enjoying the atmosphere in Washington and had another nice exchange with a fan on Tuesday.

With match point against Marcos Giron in the first round, the Wimbledon finalist asked a spectator which way he should serve before belting down an unreturnable rocket to clinch victory.

"I won the tournament in 2019, seeing my name up on the stadium and then knowing that I didn't play well at all here last year - I lost first round," he said.

"I was just going through such a dark time in my life and I'm just so happy to be here with my team.

"The love and support I'm getting from the crowd, I'm just really happy to be out here playing some really good tennis again."

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The Aussie star then revealed how he'd taken his loss to Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final, revealing it had taken him a while to get over it.

"It was really hard, it took me a while to get over that loss," he admitted.

"Ever since I picked up a racquet that's always been a goal that I was told - Wimbledon final, Wimbledon championship.

"That's the highest accolade you can achieve and I was so close I could almost taste it.

"I feel like I've done everything I can to bounce back. I've been training hard, my body's feeling good, serving great so we'll see how it goes."

Kyrgios is playing his first singles tournament since going down to Djokovic in four sets at the All England Club.

After withdrawing from singles at the Atlanta Open last week, he went on to win the doubles title with compatriot Thanasi Kokkinakis.

Kyrgios and Kokkinakis famously won the Australian Open doubles title together in January for their maiden grand slam triumph.

Earlier on Wednesday, Alex de Minaur's hopes of maintaining his fine start to the US hard-court circuit were crushed by a player ranked 73 places lower than him.

De Minaur served for the match in the second set, then had match point in the tiebreak, but let both opportunities slip against World No.94 Yoshihito Nishioka.

The Japanese star ended up winning 3-6 7-6 (8-6) 6-2 in a contest lasting two hours 35 minutes.

Alexei Popyrin was the second Aussie eliminated on Wednesday, going down 6-4 6-3 to the third-seeded American Taylor Fritz in 72 minutes.

with AAP

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