It's on: Nadal sets sizzling round two clash with Kyrgios at Wimbledon

The last time Rafael Nadal faced off against Nick Kyrgios, the Australian saved three match points, and attempted an underhanded serve, before taking a final-set tiebreaker to win their second-round meeting in Acapulco. Kyrgios went on to lift the trophy later that week. The only time the two met on grass was five years ago, when Kyrgios stunned the Spaniard in four sets to reach his first Wimbledon quarterfinal.

Nadal will get his crack at revenge after comfortably advancing in his Wimbledon opener, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3, over Yuichi Sugita on Tuesday to set a highly-anticipated battle with Kyrgios. The victory marked Nadal’s grass-court debut this season, having opted to rest after capturing his 12th French Open trophy. Sugita broke Nadal to open the match, but once Nadal settled in to get back on serve, he surged ahead to win the pair’s first encounter.

"Normally against the best players, he wants to play tennis. When that happens, he's a very dangerous opponent," Nadal said of Kyrgios. "Of course, [the] second round is a super tough one. I know that. I need to be at my 100 percent. I'm going to fight for it."

Ranked second but bumped to the No. 3 seed in favor of Roger Federer, which sparked continued discussions about Wimbledon’s usage of their own formula rewarding players for recent grass-court successes, Nadal is bidding to back up his Roland Garros triumph for the first time at the All England Club in nine years. He has not contested a final at Wimbledon since 2011, when he lost his first of four successive major finals to Novak Djokovic. He narrowly missed out on returning to the championship match a year ago, as Djokovic prevailed 10-8 in a stunning semifinal.

Kyrgios is just one of four players to beat Nadal in 38 matches this season, along with Djokovic (Australian Open final), Fabio Fognini (Monte Carlo semifinals) and Dominic Thiem (Barcelona semifinals). In rematches with Djokovic and Thiem, Nadal went on exact revenge, defeating the Serbian in the Rome final and Austrian in the championship match at Roland Garros.

"I can't wait. As soon as the draw came out, I was super happy that I saw him in my section," Kyrgios said after his five-set win over Jordan Thompson Tuesday.

"When you're a kid, you want to play the best players in the world on, I think, the best court in the world. This is something that I can't take for granted. There's no guarantee I'm going to be here again in this position. Could have an injury or something like that. I'm going to grasp with both hands, go out there, [and] give it my best shot."

Nadal is 3-3 lifetime against Kyrgios.