Kyrgios, Cilic Suffer Early Exits In Melbourne

Andreas Seppi silenced Australian supporters on Hisense Arena when he saved one match points in a comeback victory over local No. 14 seed Nick Kyrgios at the Australian Open on Wednesday night.

World No. 89 Seppi fought back from an 0-2 sets deficit and saved one match point at 7-8, Ad-out, in the deciding set to triumph 1-6, 6-7(1), 6-4, 6-2, 10-8 in three hours and 12 minutes. It was his fifth comeback from 0-2 sets down and his first win over Kyrgios, who had previous beaten Seppi at the 2014 US Open and 2015 Australian Open (8-6 in the fifth set).

Seppi now challenges Steve Darcis, a 6-3, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 winner over Diego Schwartzman.

Just five days on from appearing his first ATP World Tour final, Briton Daniel Evans recorded the biggest win of his career in beating World No. 7 Marin Cilic of Croatia.

Evans, who is currently at a career-high No. 51 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, won 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 in just under three hours, hitting 29 winners to Cilic’s 55 winners. It was the first time Cilic had lost to a player ranked as low as Evans at the major since falling to No. 126-ranked Ilija Bozoljac as a qualifier in 2007.

The 26-year-old Evans is through to the third round of a major championship for the fourth time in his career and will now face Australian No. 27 seed Bernard Tomic or Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic.

He beat No. 8-ranked Dominic Thiem en route to the Apia Sydney International final last week, when he lost to Gilles Muller in the title match.