Nick Kyrgios battled through a tough four-setter against Benjamin Bonzi on Wednesday at the US Open to reach the third round. Kyrgios and “scratching and clawing” for a win have not always gone hand in hand, but that is exactly what he did inside Louis Armstrong Stadium.

The 27-year-old is as motivated as ever.

“I feel like in this part of my career, I just don’t want to let people down. I feel like I’m representing so many people. I know how much work goes into it with my team, there’s a lot of people supporting me,” Kyrgios said. “I just remember doing a press conference here like maybe three or four years ago, I lost in the third round, I just felt horrible because I kept not exceeding expectations, winning.”

Kyrgios has done a lot of winning over the past two months. After advancing to his first major final at Wimbledon, he won the Citi Open for the second time and ousted World No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in Montreal.

But with that success has come a realisation — Kyrgios has proven to himself he can make deep runs at the highest levels in the sport. That has led him to put more pressure on himself.

“I feel like this is probably the most pressure I’ve had on myself. I know that I’m capable of going to a Slam final now and I really want to achieve. I want to bring my team with me. I want to do it together,” Kyrgios said. “I’m definitely a perfectionist on the court. I feel like I can play like four or five great points, then I play one point and I’m going nuts. It’s okay, I don’t know. It’s hard.”

Kyrgios will be the first to admit he did not always do everything within his power to succeed on Tour. But that has changed this season, when Kyrgios has shown greater focus.

“This year’s been amazing in so many different ways. For my tennis, I kind of wanted to almost reinvent myself, get back to the top of the game where I know I belong,” Kyrgios said. “The Wimbledon final was a turning point I think for me mentally. If I won that match, I don’t know where my motivation would have been at. Losing it and being so close, it was really tough for me to kind of swallow that.”

Kyrgios was concerned that if he won Wimbledon, the pressure would be off. But if anything, falling short against Novak Djokovic in his first Grand Slam final has added fuel to the fire.

“I didn’t think I’d be putting this amount of pressure on myself. Every day I come in, I watch what I eat, I try and get sleep. Like every practice session I try and have good intent,” Kyrgios said. “I almost don’t know who I am anymore, to be honest, because that’s not me. Trying to balance so many different things out. It’s hard as well. The media, the fans are crazy everywhere I go. I’m trying to balance my personal life as well as my tennis. It’s just a lot.

“I feel like I’m really professional right now. I never thought that the Wimbledon final would make me that way. I thought it would be the other way, the reverse, almost a bit lax and a bit chilled with it.”

The Australian will play American J.J. Wolf on Friday for a place in the fourth round at Flushing Meadows. If Kyrgios wins, he could play Medvedev in a fourth-round blockbuster.

Andy Murray had plenty of thinking to do early in his second-round clash against #NextGenATP American Emilio Nava at the US Open on Wednesday, but the former World No. 1 raised his level to prevail 5-7, 6-3, 6-1, 6-0 and reach the third round in New York.

The 20-year-old Nava clinched a lung-busting 84-minute opening set with a stunning forehand pass to heap pressure on his experienced opponent, but Murray bided his time and began to unpick the Nava game with some consistent baseline hitting on Arthur Ashe Stadium. The 2012 champion won 14 of the final 15 games to reach the third round in New York for the first time in six years.

“I think I started to take the ball on a little bit more,” said Murray in his on-court interview when asked how he had turned the match around. “He was dictating a lot of the points in the first set. Once I started to hit the ball a little bit bigger, a little bit deeper, I was then able to control the points more.

“He (Nava) also played a really long first-round match, a five-setter against John Millman. I think that’s the first five-setter that he’s played, so it’s not always that easy to recover and I think his level dropped a little bit in the third and fourth sets. But he’s a brilliant young player and he’s going to have a very bright future.”

Murray had won just one of four matches in the North American hard-court swing coming into the US Open, but he downed 24th seed Francisco Cerundolo in straight sets in the opening round and Wednesday’s win against Nava improved the 35-year-old’s record at Flushing Meadows to 48-14. Murray struck 11 fewer winners than World No. 203 Nava (22 to 33), but the Briton believes his trademark defence is just as much of a weapon as his ability to hit winners this fortnight in New York.

“Physcially this is the best I’ve felt in the last few years. My movement is by far the best it has been in a long time. That’s always been a really important part of my game, and nowadays especially with a lot of the guys now hitting a huge ball, you need to be able to defend well. I feel like I’m doing that just now, I’m getting closer to where I want to be and hopefully I can have a deep run here.”

With the win Murray rises to No. 43 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings, his highest mark since May 2018. The Briton will next face 13th seed Matteo Berrettini, who also recovered from dropping the opening set in his second-round match, holding firm for a 2-6, 6-1, 7-6(4), 7-6(7) win against Frenchman Hugo Grenier.

The 2019 semi-finalist Berrettini struck 74 winners to Grenier’s 30 in his three-hour, 25-minute triumph on Grandstand, and Murray is more than aware of the Italian’s power, having fallen to the seven-time Tour titlist on the grass in Stuttgart in June.

“He’s had a bit of an unlucky year, to be honest,” said Murray of Berrettini. “I know he got Covid at the beginning of Wimbledon having just won Stuttgart and Queens back-to-back… I think it was a wrist injury he had so he missed pretty much the whole of the clay season as well this year, but when he has been on the court he’s done really, really well.

“We played in the Stuttgart final, a tough three-set match, so I’m expecting it to be really difficult, but if I play well and my return is on point then I’ve got a good chance.”