News

Nishikori wins the Challenger 125 in Dallas

3 February 2018

When Andre Agassi decided to compete in the Challenger circuit to regain his lost form, many were surprised. Eventually, that was an excellent move for the American to get back to competitions and find a proper mentality again. After that experience, Andre got back to the ATP circuit, and he became the oldest world no.1 in history (Federer will try to beat this record this year).

Similarly, Kei Nishikori has decided not to play the Australian Open when coming back to the tour after being out from the competitions since August 2017 for a wrist injury. Instead, the Japanese decided to go back playing at challenger level.

Now ranked world no.27, Kei had a horrible experience in the Newport Challenger to crash out in the 1^st round at the hand of the world no.214 Dennis Novikov (a qualifier!). The fate wanted that Nishikori had to face Dennis again after 4 days in the 1^st round in Dallas and that was the moment when things started to change for the Japanese that defeated Novikov 6-3 6-3.

In the following round in Dallas, Kei struggled against the world no. 162 Matthias Bachinger to beat him after recovering from a 1-set down (4-6 6-4 6-4). Then the Japanese ended winning the all thing after dismissing the world no. 158 Mackenzie Mcdonald 6-1 6-4. Even if Mcdonald is not in the top100, he is a good player, and he had a fantastic run recently in Melbourne after he reached the 2^nd round coming straight from the qualifications losing to Grigor Dimitrov 4-6 6-2 6-4 0-6 8-6.

It was important for my confidence

Soon after winning the title, Kei posted the following message

“Just a quick message to say thank you for all the messages. I played these two challenger weeks to get matches and am very happy with my progress. I feel good and this week was important for my confidence. Thank you!”

Let’s see how Kei will perform in the next few weeks.