Kei Nishikori Announces Surprising News for Fans

It’s been over six months since Japan’s Kei Nishikori featured in a tennis match. He was last seen playing in the US Open where he injured his elbow in the third round. He did join Japan’s national team for the Davis Cup tie against Ecuador in March. However, he wasn’t fit enough to play so he remained on the bench. Since then he has been recovering and practicing but the pandemic has delayed his return.

Nishikori has been training in Florida, USA. He had elbow surgery and from then on has recovered well. According to reports from his agency, IMG, he is going to play a few unofficial tournaments in the US. Although Players will be monitored with frequent temperature checks and a lower number of the coaching staff will be allowed as part of the rules that have to be followed during these tournaments.

When is Kei Nishikori returning to competitive tennis?

Nishikori is going to play the Cincinnati Masters scheduled to be held between 15th August to 23rd August. He will then play the US Open which is scheduled to begin by the 31st of August. Nishikori’s current rank is 31 but he will use his protected rank of 10 for the tournaments.

Nishikori is the top-ranked Asian player. He came close to winning the 2014 US Open finishing runner-up to Marin Cilic. Since then he has reached the semi-final twice. He is anticipating a strong return. Although not playing much, Nishikori has been thinking about his tactics and coming up with strategies to beat Novak Djokovic during the pandemic.

“I’ve reviewed and re-evaluated my matches from a different point of view. Djokovic is a clutch player, he rarely makes mistakes, but now I have some tactics against him to try in my head,” said Nishikori.

The return of Grand Slam tennis has split the tennis fraternity. Top players like Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem, etc have indicated that they might skip the US-part of the season. On the WTA side, Simona Halep also agreed with Djokovic’s comments on the present situation and why it’s not the right time to restart tennis. Whereas some players like Andy Murray are ready to fire at the US Open. And the Current British No.1 Dan Evans said that Djokovic’s concern only affects the top-ranked player and not the lower-ranked players.

No Asian male has won a grand slam till now but Nishikori came close in 2014. The participation of the higher-ranked players is in doom. Nishikori also claims to have different tactics for the big matches. So he might finally use this to write his name in history and become the first Asian Male Grand Slam Champion.