By Erik Gudris | @atntennis | Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Kei Nishikori made a winning return to the ATP Tour by taking his opening round match at this week’s Atlanta Open.
The 33-year-old Nishikori won his first tour level match since October 2021 after he defeated Australia’s Jordan Thompson 7-6(5), 7-6(5) to reach the second round.
“Not (an) easy first round against Jordan. He’s very steady from the baseline. He doesn’t miss much and I have to be aggressive all the time,” Nishikori said in his post-match interview. “But I’m quite happy the way I played today. There were some moments that I should have stepped up a little more.
“But with these tough conditions I’m happy to win in two sets.”
Nishikori, a former World No. 4 in the world and a US Open finalist in 2014, has struggled with injuries throughout his career. In January 2022, Nishikori had arthroscopic surgery on his left hip. He did not play for the rest of that year. This year, after dealing with a foot injury at the start of the season, Nishikori returned to tennis in June at an ATP Challenger event in Puerto Rico. Nishikori ended up later winning the event, the first ever unranked player ever to win an ATP Challenger title.
Nishikori owns 12 career ATP Tour titles.
“I played good actually. I played a couple of Challengers and I didn’t play (for) almost two years,” Nishikori added. “It was a pretty good level, I think. And yeah, I just keep playing my best and hope I can stay later this week.”
Despite extremely hot conditions on court, Nishikori managed to get though the match in straight sets. He will next face either Ben Shelton or qualifier Shang Juncheng.
Photo Credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Blog RSS…