FP - Roger Federer admitted he was powerless to stop Nick Kyrgios' thunderous serve after becoming the latest big name to fall victim to the fast-rising Australian tennis star.
As Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray safely progressed to the third round, top seed Federer's quest for a fifth Madrid Masters title ended in a rollercoaster 6-7 (2-7) 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (14-12) loss to Kyrgios.
Kyrgios crunched 22 aces and won 79 of 95 points from his first delivery to send the Swiss superstar packing in his first match since claiming his 85th career title on Sunday in Istanbul.
"My problem was I couldn't return his first serve," Federer said after failing to convert either of two match points in the two-hour, 37-minute thriller.
"I had a horrible performance on return of serve. As the match went on, it got so bad that I just couldn't get into decent positions on the return.
"So it made it very difficult to get any sort of rhythm after that.
"I'm very disappointed by that. That's what cost me the match, in my opinion.
"But credit to him for serving well and keep doing what he was doing.
"He's got a wonderful serve, good potential, so I hope he keeps working hard and that he can compete for the best spots in tennis."
Federer has long rated Kyrgios highly and spent a week training with the 20-year-old in Zurich before last year's French Open.
But while Kyrgios continues his quest to become the first Australian to win an ATP title on clay since Lleyton Hewitt won his second in 2009 in Houston, Federer now must decide whether or not to chase more match practice for Roland Garros at next week's Rome Masters.
Murray's immediate concern is getting some sleep after his 6-4 3-6 6-0 win over Philipp Kohlschreiber ended at three o'clock on Thursday morning.
The second-seeded Scot had already defeated his German opponent in three sets in the rain-delayed Munich Open final on Monday to register his first claycourt title.
His latest meeting with Kohlschreiber only got underway at just after 1am after a succession of marathon matches at the joint ATP-WTA tournament had thrown the schedule into chaos.
The Murray-Kohlschreiber clash was not the latest finish to an ATP World Tour tie.
That honour belongs to Benjamin Becker and Jiri Novak, who completed a match at the 2006 Japan Open at 3.25am.
At grand slam level, Lleyton Hewitt beat Marcos Baghdatis in an Australian Open epic that finished at 4.34am.
Murray will have to recover quickly as he is due to face Spain's Marcel Granollers later on Thursday for a place in the quarter-finals.
Granollers may not be feeling particularly fresh either as he needed three hours and 20 minutes to defeat French 13th seed Gael Monfils 7-6 (8-6) 6-7 (7-9) 6-4.
Earlier, Nadal opened his quest for a fifth Madrid title with a 6-4 6-3 defeat of Steve Johnson.
The nine-time goes on to face Italy's Simone Bolelli for a quarter-final spot.
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