Kyrgios and Sock Advance in Atlanta Open Doubles Draw

Australian Nick Kyrgios and American Jack Sock advanced to the quarterfinals of  the doubles tournament at the Atlanta Open after defeating the No. 3 seeds, Pakistani Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Indian Divij Sharan 6-1, 6-3.

After not taking the court until almost midnight on Monday, Kyrgios and Sock did not disappoint in giving the crowd their usual share of entertainment. The duo combined for 11 aces and won 90% of the points on their first serves. The duo also won all four of their break point chances to win convincingly over the No. 3 seeds. The doubles match took a very late start due to a rain delay, but that didn’t stop the fans from sticking around until almost 1 a.m. Tuesday morning when the match concluded.

This is not the first time Kyrgios and Sock have played doubles together. At media day at the Atlanta Open, Sock told reporters that “We’ve played together a bunch before and we’re close friends.”

After a lack of singles play from Kyrgios and Sock over the last year due to injuries and the pandemic, many were anticipating the two would finally team up in doubles once again. The two have a doubles title together when they won on the clay courts in Lyon, France back in 2018. The most recent match they have played together was a Laver Cup match in 2019, where they defeated Rafael Nadal and Stefanos Tsitsipas. Sock is coming off a doubles title on the grass in Newport two weeks ago with fellow American William Blumberg. Kyrgios hasn’t played since withdrawing from his third round match at the Wimbledon Championships against Felix Auger-Aliassime. Nick said he had an abdomen injury and stated that it was difficult to get any pace on his serve.

Kyrgios and Sock are slated to play another Australian-American combo in Jordan Thompson and Steve Johnson in the quarterfinals Wednesday. As far as singles are concerned, Sock is scheduled to play Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania on Tuesday evening, and Kyrgios is set to play Kevin Anderson of South Africa Tuesday in the last match of the night.