WIMBLEDON, England - Until the evening shadows fell on Centre Court Tuesday, the last time a teenager beat a No. 1 player at a Grand Slam event was at the 2005 French Open. The winner was Rafael Nadal, over Roger Federer, a couple of days after Nadal's 19th birthday.
Nick Kyrgios, a 19-year-old wild-card entrant from Australia, joined Nadal by beating him in the fourth round of Wimbledon.
All limbs and panache, Kyrgios battered Nadal with big serves, boundless reach and boyish enthusiasm. Ranked No. 144 in the world, but rising fast, Kyrgios looked immune to the pressure and fearless with his shots, building strength and confidence on the way to a 7-6 (5), 5-7, 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory.
He served quickly to unsettle Nadal and his notoriously slow pace of play, unleashing 130-mile-per-hour serves. He struck right-handed forehands with the loose motion of a man cracking a whip. He nonchalantly sent one Nadal shot back between his legs, raising his arms when it won the point.
Kyrgios won the final point with his 37th ace. He turned to friends and family, did a bit of a dance, and quickly wore an expression that said he was not surprised.
'You've got to believe you can win the match from the start, and I definitely believe that,' he said in a television interview moments after the match.
He had little time to celebrate, with the men's quarterfinals scheduled for Wednesday. Kyrgios will face No. 8 Milos Raonic of Canada, another hard-serving player.
Roger Federer, seeded fourth and searching for his eighth Wimbledon singles title, will face his fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka, seeded fifth. Federer had not dropped a set in his four matches, including Tuesday's victory over the Spaniard Tommy Robredo.
No. 2 Novak Djokovic will play No. 26 Marin Cilic, and Andy Murray, the third-seeded defending champion, will play No. 11 Grigor Dimitrov.
Kyrgios was a wild-card entrant who built momentum, and a rousing following among Australian fans at Wimbledon, by withstanding nine match points in a five-set victory over No. 13 Richard Gasquet in the second round.
He beat another wild card, Jiri Vesely, in the third round to reach Nadal.
Nadal won Wimbledon in 2008 and 2010, but seems to have a sudden allergy to grass. He lost in the second round in 2012 and was ousted in the first round last year. He lost the first set in each of his first three matches this year before sweeping the unsung upstart from the tournament with building strength.
It looked to be developing the same way against Kyrgios. The men held serve, back and forth, before Kyrgios captured the first set in a 7-5 tiebreaker. Nadal first broke Kyrgios's serve to win the last game of the second set, and the match felt oh-so-slightly tilted in favor of the world's best player.
But Nadal could not shake free, and he could not solve Kyrgios's serve. The third set went to another tiebreaker. Kyrgios prevailed. Each player had won 117 points, but Kyrgios had captured two of the sets.
Nadal could not respond. Kyrgios broke Nadal for the first time early in the fourth set, and held serve on his own, winning all four points in the final game.
He is the lowest-ranked player to beat Nadal since No. 690 Joachim Johansson beat him in Stockholm in 2006.
The result upset the balance atop men's tennis, where Murray, Djokovic, Nadal and Federer represent the champions of 35 of the past 37 Grand Slam titles. The four men, the Wimbledon's top four seeds, have taken turns wining the past four Wimbledon championships. At least two of them, and often three, have been in the semifinals here every year since 2006.
Wawrinka was one of the two men to have broken through, winning the Australian Open earlier this year. Like Federer, Wawrinka on Tuesday knocked out a Spaniard, No. 19 Feliciano López, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (7), 6-3. Unlike Federer, Wawrinka has not ventured this far before at Wimbledon. It took him 10 appearances, two short of the tournament record in the Open era, to reach the quarterfinals.
'When you play Roger at Wimbledon, when he's fit and confident and feeling well, it's one of the biggest challenges in tennis,' Wawrinka said. 'It's like playing Rafa in the French Open.'
Nadal won the ninth French Open of his career last month. He beat Murray in the semifinals and Djokovic in the final, all part of a familiar script.
He left without the chance to meet his friendly rivals at Wimbledon. But it seems likely that he and the rest of the tennis world will see plenty more of Kyrgios.
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