Stan Wawrinka is on a collision course for a fourth-round grudge match with Aussie upstart Nick Kyrgios at the US Open.
The Swiss world No.3 unleashed 57 winners in his 6-1 7-6 (7-4) 7-5 second-round victory over Italian qualifier Alessandro Giannessi.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the two-time grand slam winner, as he had to rally from 5-2 down in the second set.
After dominating the opening set, the third-seeded Swiss battled back to force a tiebreak and then broke the Italian in the final game of the match to take victory.
“I was trying to be a little more aggressive,” said Wawrinka.
“I’m very happy the way I won the match.”
Wawrinka will now face Briton Daniel Evans, while Kyrgios, who was impressive in his straight sets defeat of Argentine Horacio Zeballos, will play Ukrainian world No.63 Ilya Marchenko.
Should they both get through they will be set to resume a rivalry that got ugly in Montreal last year when Kyrgios infamously sledged Wawrinka with the line “Kokkinakis banged your girlfriend.”
Since then the duo have battled twice, taking a win apiece.
Kyrgios and Wawrinka were not the only two to cruise through to the third round.
Andy Murray was again impressive, the 2012 US Open champion shut out the New York noise and the game of Spain’s Marcel Granollers with a 6-4 6-1 6-4 win to reach the third round.
Murray ground down the world No.45 in a match involving numerous lung-busting rallies and played under a cacophony of sound with the $US150 million ($A198.62 million) roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium court closed.
At times, the players could barely hear the ball off their strings and the rain hammering on the roof was almost deafening but second seed Murray kept calm to clinch a convincing victory.
“At first we didn’t know if there was just more people come in at the change of ends, but then we quickly realised it was the rain,” Murray said.
“It was tough, you couldn’t really hear the ball which makes it tricky. But we’re lucky to play under the roof; otherwise there wouldn’t be any tennis so it’s good for everyone.”
Murray will now play unseeded Italian Paolo Lorenzi.
Joining Murray in the third round is his potential quarter-final opponent Kei Nishikori.
The Japanese star, who made the final at Flushing Meadows in 2014, dropped the second set but came through 6-4 4-6 6-4 6-3 against 20-year-old Russian qualifier Karen Khachanov.
A rain delay of around three hours, which came at 4-4 in the third set, helped Nishikori regroup and he eased away to victory on the resumption.
Austrian eighth seed Dominic Thiem, who came from two sets to one down to beat Australia’s John Millman in the first round is also through to the third round.
Thiem had no such problems in his round two clash, blasting past Lithuanian Ricardis Berankis 6-4 6-3 6-2 in a little under two hours.
Thiem will now play Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta, who won the title at Winston-Salem last week, knocking Millman out of that tournament in the semi-finals.
Also making waves is 19-year-old American Jared Donaldson who backed up his first round win over 12th-seeded Belgian David Goffin with a 7-5 6-3 6-3 win over Serbian Viktor Troicki.
