Rinky Hijikata and Ji Sung Nam will face off in the 1st round of the Playford Challenger for the 2nd time in their career. They are scheduled to play on Wednesday at 10:00 am on CENTER COURT. In the following paragraphs, you can find the head to head analysis and prediction.
Prediction, odds and live streaming
The pick for Tennis Tonic is Rinky Hijikata who should win in 2 sets.
Rinky Hijikata -> 1.097
Ji Sung Nam -> 6.2
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Prediction and head to head Rinky Hijikata vs. Ji Sung Nam
This will be the 2nd time that Rinky Hijikata and Ji Sung Nam face off. The head to head is 1-0 for Hijikata (see full H2H stats), 1-0 on hard.
The last time that they competed against each other, Hijikata won 6-3 6-1 in the 1st round in M15 Monastir back in 2021.
Rinky Hijikata
| Year | Total | Hard | Clay | I.hard | Grass | Carpet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 34-33 | 20-17 | 4-7 | 6-5 | 4-4 | 0-0 |
| 2024 | 36-33 | 29-21 | 1-6 | 1-1 | 5-5 | 0-0 |
| 2023 | 46-34 | 37-23 | 0-3 | 0-2 | 9-6 | 0-0 |
| 2022 | 53-29 | 37-19 | 2-2 | 10-6 | 4-2 | 0-0 |
| 2021 | 41-13 | 31-9 | 9-3 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
Ranked no. 70 (career-high), Hijikata will start his run in the Playford Challenger after he played his last match in Tokyo where he lost 5-7 6-3 6-2 to Garin in the qualifications on the 15th of October.
Hijikata has an overall 40-31 win-loss record in 2023, 31-21 on hard (See FULL STATS).
His best result of the season was winning the title the Burnie Challenger where he beat James Duckworth in the final 6-3 6-3.
Talking about his overall career, The Australian has an overall 159-95 record. He has a positive 115-60 record on hard.
Previously in the Playford Challenger
Previously, he won this tournament once in 2022. See his history.
Ji Sung Nam
| Year | Total | Hard | Clay | I.hard | Grass | Carpet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 23-16 | 18-12 | 0-1 | 5-3 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2024 | 14-21 | 12-10 | 2-4 | 0-1 | 0-6 | 0-0 |
| 2023 | 15-20 | 13-15 | 2-4 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2022 | 26-19 | 24-13 | 2-4 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 |
| 2021 | 4-7 | 2-6 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 1-0 | 0-0 |
Ranked no. 787, Ji got to the 1st round after defeating Mac Kiger 5-7 6-2 6-0 and Thomas Fancutt 2-6 6-2 7-5.
In the qualifications against Fancutt, Ji recovered from a 1-set down deficit before winning (2-6 6-2 7-5). During the match Sung Nam scored 84 points vs Fancutt’s 81. The Korean was exceptionally aggressive to blast 43 winners.
About the serving games, Sung Nam blasted 5 aces and he committed only 3 double faults. Ji Sung Nam lost the serve 3 times and he saved 2 break points. Furthermore, Sung Nam put 72% of his first serves in, winning 73% (43/59) of the points behind his 1st serve and 35% (8/23) on the 2nd serve. Sung Nam broke Fancutt 4 times after converting 50% of his break points (4/8).
Overall Performance in this tournament
Sung Nam started his run at this tournament from the qualifications. In the main draw, he has conceded 2 set in the tournament to win 54% of the points he played.
Ji has an aggregate 9-17 win-loss record in 2023, 7-12 on hard (See FULL STATS).
Previously in the Playford Challenger
The Korean has never competed in this tournament before.
Tennis Scores in Playford Challenger
- Tristan SchoolkateSchoolkate – Pavle MarinkovMarinkov (6-3 6-4) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Yuta ShimizuShimizu – Kai WehneltWehnelt (6-4 6-4) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Nam Hoang LyHoang Ly – Matthew DellavedovaDellavedova (6-4 6-3) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Seong Chan HongChan Hong – Jayden CourtCourt (7-67 6-3) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Taro DanielDaniel – Jacob BradshawBradshaw (6-3 6-1) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Thanasi KokkinakisKokkinakis – Yusuke TakahashiTakahashi (6-77 6-3 6-2) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Philip SekulicSekulic – Blake EllisEllis (6-3 7-5) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Hiroki MoriyaMoriya – Dane SweenySweeny (7-65 6-2) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Marc PolmansPolmans – Filip PeliwoPeliwo (6-4 6-0) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Li TuTu – Zachary ViialaViiala (7-5 6-2) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Yasutaka UchiyamaUchiyama – Omar JasikaJasika (6-3 6-2) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Naoki NakagawaNakagawa – Blake MottMott (5-7 6-1 6-3) – Stats, scores, rankings
- Rio NoguchiNoguchi – Arthur WeberWeber (6-1 6-2) – Stats, scores, rankings
Upcoming matches in the draw
- Hiroki MoriyaMoriya – Rio NoguchiNoguchi (1-1) – H2H and prediction
- Ji Sung NamSung Nam – Rinky HijikataHijikata (0-1) – H2H and prediction
- Taro DanielDaniel – Li TuTu (0-0) – H2H and prediction
- Kaichi UchidaUchida – James DuckworthDuckworth (0-1) – H2H and prediction
- Benjamin LockLock – (0-0) – H2H and prediction
- Nam Hoang LyHoang Ly – Tristan SchoolkateSchoolkate (0-0) – H2H and prediction
- Seong Chan HongChan Hong – Naoki NakagawaNakagawa (0-1) – H2H and prediction
- Yuta ShimizuShimizu – Marc PolmansPolmans (0-2) – H2H and prediction