Kyrgios beaten, injured in California

Australian teen Nick Kyrgios may miss more tennis after rolling his ankle late in his loss to Grigor Dimitrov at the Indian Wells Masters in California.

Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios

Nick Kyrgios will await scan results on an ankle injury suffered in his Indian Wells Masters loss. (AAP)

Young Australian star Nick Kyrgios will await scan results on an ankle injury suffered in a second round loss to Grigor Dimitrov at the Indian Wells Masters in California.

Kyrgios turned his ankle in the ninth game of the third set before going down 7-6 (7-2) 3-6 7-6 (7-4) to the Bulgarian world No.11 on Sunday.

The 19-year-old incurred the injury as he hit a shot breaking Dimitrov's serve to go up 5-4 with a chance to serve out the match.

He waved away the trainer at the ensuing change of ends but was restricted in his movement thereafter, losing eight of the next nine points and he admitted the ankle had troubled him.

"It obviously played a big part in me not serving out the match, because I had not really been broken before that," said Kyrgios.

On Twitter after the match, he revealed he was headed for tests on his ankle.

"Thanks for the messages guys, heading for a scan in an hour. Fingers crossed! Good match @GrigorDimitrov good luck in the next one #MovingOn," tweeted Kyrgios.

The injury came in only Kyrgios' second match back after suffering a back injury at the Australian Open in January.

However Kyrgios earned praise from former Australian star Paul McNamee for battling on through the injury without an injury time out.

"How refreshing for a player not to rush to an injury timeout and instead just man up, play on and finish the match #fairplay," tweeted McNamee.

The 23-year-old Dimitrov, who along with world No.39 Kyrgios is rated as a future grand slam contender, found the Australian tough to handle.

"He's an extravagant player, obviously. He tries a lot of different shots, a lot of unstandard decisions," Dimitrov said.

Former champions Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal breezed through their Indian Wells openers.

Second seed Federer opened his bid for a fifth Indian Wells title by easing to a 6-4, 6-2 second round victory over Argentina's Diego Schwartzman. Nadal also opened his campaign on a successful note, blitzing Igor Sijsling 6-4, 6-2 in the joint WTA and ATP hardcourt tournament.

Nadal, who is seeded third, broke Sijsling three times and only lost one point on his first serve (22 of 23) in the 62-minute centre court match.

"I think I played solid match for the first match," Nadal said. "I'm very happy with the way I played. I played with not too many mistakes, winning a good percentage of points with my serve."

Australians in round-three action on Monday are Thanasi Kokkinakis against Argentinian Juan Monaco, Bernard Tomic facing Spaniard David Ferrer and Samantha Stosur taking on Italian Flavia Pennetta.


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Source: AAP


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