Nick heads Young Gun charge

Most media reports have neglected to report this but the second Tuesday of Wimbledon 2014 featured two women's quarter finals.  Ordinarily these would be treated as the most significant matches of the day in terms of progressing the event.  Petra Kvitova and Lucie Safarova are the first semi finalists booked for this year, and the all Czech match up ensures one of the finalists at the weekend will come from the Czech Republic.  

However, the exploits of teenager Nick Kyrgios have all of Australia cheering, and much of the rest of the tennis loving world agog.  His dismantling of the number one player Rafa Nadal was devastating in its planning and execution.  The plan was simple - serve big and attack.  When receiving serve, attack.  When in trouble, be anything but conservative.  Nadal brought what he thought was sufficient to blunt the precocious teenager's obvious weapons, and apply his vast reserves of experience and range of shots to the situation.

After taking the second set 7-5 and levelling the match, it seemed as though Nadal had done enough to absorb the initial battering, and for the third set it was the Australian playing catch up.  However, Nick did not flinch at any point, even when precariously placed when serving.  His serve was reliable - dare I say it, a little Sampras-like in its ability to force him out of dangerous positions.

Nadal is normally a safe bet in tie breaks, and having lost one, even more likely to win the next one he contests, and yet his efforts were made almost redundant because Nick Kyrgios and his booming serve would win or lose this match, while Rafa played support.

The fourth set, with several doubters (admittedly me being one) waiting expectantly for the Spanish revival, only displayed an increasingly confident new kid on the block running over the top of a weary veteran, battered and bruised as much as the racquets he had used in vain to defend the indefensible.

A single break of serve enabled Kyrgios to serve the match out at 5-3, and he did for the loss of no further points, signed off with his 37th ace.

Win or lose against Milos Raonic in the quarters, Nick Kyrgios has established a decent foothold on the mountain he is climbing to reach the top echelons of world tennis.  Australia can expect big things, if not straight away, certainly in the short term, and hopefully over a long career.

In other news, rather pedestrian in relative terms, the screaming Maria Sharapova was dumped from Wimbledon by Angelique Kerber, the German number nine seed hitting the ball as well as I have seen her since she rocketed into the top ten a few years back.  She has earned the right to play Canadian star on the rise, Genie Bouchard, and if Bouchard wins that match it will be three semi finals in all three Grand Slam events in 2014.

The Kerber/Sharapova clash featured some of the best women's tennis of the tournament to date, but sadly again raised the spectre of the Sharapova noise factor.  Thankfully, Angelique was not intimidated, but that does not make Maria's abhorrent and unnecessary actions any more palatable.

Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka comfortably won fourth round matches, and an all Swiss quarter final is now upon us - no deferring to the natural order anymore, especially as Stan is the current holder of a Grand Slam title and Roger has not won one since 2012.  This will be a no holds barred clash between one who knows how to win here, and often, and one who prior to this year knew only too well how to lose early.  Several questions will be answered.