With Kei Nishikori, you always have to have time in front of you if you want to follow your match to the end. The Japanese like to go long. At 35, he continues this tradition in Melbourne. Sunday, he reached the first round by winning 4-6, 6-7, 7-5, 6-2, 6-3 against Thiago Monteiro, saving two match points in the process. This is Nishikori’s 29th victory in 37 matches in 5 sets. With 81.8% success rate, he even has the second best ratio of the Open era, behind the legend Björn Borg (87%).
The former world number 4 is particularly effective at the Australian Open when he has to play a 5th set. Facing Monteiro, it was the eighth time he won at the end of the distance in Melbourne. He only lost once in this antipodean configuration, during his round of 16 against Roger Federer. In 2012, he scored one of the first major victories of his career against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, then 6th in the world.
“Everyone talks to me about it“, laughs about his record in 5th sets Nishikori, well aware of this long-standing reputation on the circuit. “Even after matches, everyone, including the players, come and joke when they see me. ‘Another match in 5 sets!’, he said. It’s nice to have this track record because it helps you have confidence in these kinds of circumstances. It was maybe six or seven years ago that I really started to realize this.”
It’s not a good habit to have
Perhaps he is referring to the period spanning from Roland-Garros 2010 to Roland-Garros 2019. There, in the space of a year, Kei Nishikori had played and won seven matches in five sets in Grand Slam, including three here in Melbourne, with two successes in the super tie-break against Ivo Karlovic then Pablo Carreno Busta in the round of 16, in a rather tense outcome for the Spaniard.
Does he have a recipe to explain this insolent success? “During the match I don’t think much because I try to concentrate on what I have to do in the next point, he deciphers. On the other hand, I try to think again before the start of the 5th set, about what I did well or badly, what he did better than me. I try to think a lot. Then I think that my level of concentration is generally always high on the pitch, and even more so in decisive moments.”
Kei Nishikori.
Credit: Getty Images
But doesn’t this strength mask a form of weakness? Nishikori is not far from thinking so. “Many great players win in three sets, I don’t know how to do that, he notes. I always go to the 5th set… This is something I need to improve. It’s not a good habit to have.” In fact, he often ends up doing well against players less well ranked than him, but he ultimately has very few very big victories in five sets against the greatest champions.
With the exception, however, of the US Open, where he took the upper hand in the 5th set over three Grand Slam winners: Stan Wawrinka (2014), Andy Murray (2016) and Marin Cilic (2018). The fact remains that, overall, its record remains exceptional. Even if he has never been considered a monster on a mental level, Kei Nishikori nevertheless has great resources. When you have to play everything in the decisive round with him, it doesn’t look very good for the opponent…
