Kei Nishikori and Taisei Ichikawa will clash against each other in the 1^st round of the Yokohama Challenger for the 1^st time in their career. They are scheduled to compete on Tuesday at 12:30 pm on COURT 3. In this post, we analyze their head to head performance and prediction.

Prediction, odds and live streaming

The pick for Tennis Tonic is Kei Nishikori who should win in 2 sets.

As per the initial odds, Kei Nishikori is the pick to win this match.
Kei Nishikori -> 1.184
Taisei Ichikawa -> 4.15

Click here to see the updated quotes and live streaming (only selected countries - USA excluded).

To be able to watch live streaming bet365, a funded account is required or you need to have placed a bet in the last 24 hours. 18+ BeGambleAware.

Here where top tennis events are broadcasted or streamed online (ATP, WTA).

At the challenger level, there will be free live streaming on Challenger TV.

 

Prediction and head to head Kei Nishikori vs. Taisei Ichikawa

There is no head to head record between Kei Nishikori and Taisei Ichikawa since this will be the first time that they will play each other in the main tour.

Kei Nishikori

Ranked no. 158, Nishikori will start his run in the Yokohama Challenger after he played his last match in Cincinnati where he lost 7-5 6-3 to Ugo in the 1^st round on the 8^th of August.

Nishikori has an aggregate 13-11 win-loss record in 2025, 9-6 on hard (See FULL STATS).

Kei’s best result of the year was getting to the final in Hong Kong.

Talking about his overall career, The Japanese has an overall 603-285 record. He has a positive 301-144 record on hard.

Previously in the Yokohama Challenger

Nishikori has never competed in this tournament before.

Taisei Ichikawa

Ranked no. 793, the Japanese reached the 1^st round after beating Shogo Sanada 6-4 6-4 and Ryuki Matsuda 7-5 6-3.

In the qualifications, Ichikawa had a good straight sets win against Matsuda (7-5 6-3). During the match Ichikawa scored 72 points vs Matsuda’s 56. The Japanese was exceptionally aggressive to blast 29 winners.

About the serving games, Ichikawa fired 3 aces and he committed only 1 double fault for the entire match. Overall, Taisei Ichikawa was quite efficient on serve to win 74% (29/39) of his 1st serve and 52% (14/27) on the second serve. However, this didn’t prevent his to concede the serve 3 times. Taisei broke Matsuda 5 times after converting 63% of his break points (5/8).

Overall Performance in this tournament

Taisei started his run at this tournament from the qualifications. In the main draw, he hasn’t surrendered yet a set in this event to win 54% of the points he played.

Ichikawa has an aggregate 25-23 win-loss record in 2025, 20-17 on hard (See FULL STATS).

Tennis Scores in Yokohama Challenger

• Yuta ShimizuShimizu – Yusuke TakahashiTakahashi (6-2 6-2) – Stats, scores, rankings
• Akira SantillanSantillan – Masamichi ImamuraImamura (6-0 6-2) – Stats, scores, rankings
• Maxim ZhukovZhukov – Ryo TabataTabata (6-4 6-4) – Stats, scores, rankings
• Yasutaka UchiyamaUchiyama – Tsung-Hao HuangHuang (6-4 7-6¹¹) – Stats, scores, rankings

Upcoming matches in the draw

• Kei NishikoriNishikori – Taisei IchikawaIchikawa (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Hyeon ChungChung – Kaichi UchidaUchida (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Jumpei YamasakiYamasaki – Yuki MochizukiMochizuki (1-3) – H2H and prediction
• Oliver CrawfordCrawford – Igor Ribeiro MarcondesRibeiro Marcondes (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Neil OberleitnerOberleitner – Yu Hsiou HsuHsiou Hsu (1-1) – H2H and prediction
• Kasidit SamrejSamrej – (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Max BasingBasing – Hikaru ShiraishiShiraishi (0-0) – H2H and prediction
• Woobin ShinShin – Michael VrbenskyVrbensky (0-0) – H2H and prediction