Rafael Nadal gets revenge on nemesis Nick Kyrgios at Wimbledon

It was a second-rounder that felt like a second-week showdown. Both men played like it—a very good thing for believers of the supremely talented and endlessly confounding Nick Kyrgios.

But in some ways, it was like any other match for Rafael Nadal, who treats first-rounders at smaller events like finals at majors. And when Nadal plays like he usually does, well, he usually wins. Such was the case Thursday at Wimbledon, as the two-time tournament champion and 18-time Grand Slam champion advanced, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (3).

While Nadal treated this contest—a "grudge match" to many outsiders, considering the history of the contestants and the banter between them—with the seriousness of a medical exam, he played above his normal level in some respects. Coming into the match, Nadal was 0-5 against Kyrgios in tiebreakers. He won both of them today, serving as well as he did in the 12 games that preceded them—there were no breaks of serve in the third or fourth sets—and outlasting Kyrgios in enthralling all-court rallies. Sometimes those rallies ended with winners—Nadal struck 44 of them, against 16 errors—but sometimes they ended in classic Kyrgios fashion: with a head scratch. Nadal won the first point of the fourth-set tiebreaker when Kyrgios completely botched an overhead of a ball that, had it bounced, may have landed out; two points later, the 24-year-old didn't move his feet at all and futilely slapped at a forehand.

"Casual doesn't begin to describe that swing," said ESPN's Chris Fowler.

The Kyrgios we saw today was about as refined a tennis player as we're going to get. He served brilliantly, hitting 29 aces and winning 71 percent of first-serve points. He cracked 58 winners against 27 unforced errors, with some point-enders leaving Nadal flailing along the baseline. He treated the match like he said he would in his most recent press conference.

He also mocked the chair umpire in an uncomfortable exchange that, to many tennis fans, confirms Kyrgios' position as an enemy of the sport and an anti-role model, no matter how electric his shotmaking can be.

"I don't want to comment on this," Nadal told the BBC after his 50th career match win at Wimbledon. "Sometimes it's tough to see a couple of things on court. It's amazing how well he's able to play, forgetting that stuff."

Still, Nadal conceded that Kyrgios can be a "Grand Slam champion" if he wants to, and that "when he plays well, he's one of the toughest opponents you can face."

You might want to look in the mirror, Rafa.

Stay tuned for additional analysis of this match from Steve Tignor.