FORMER Top 5 ATP Tour player Kei Nishikori reached the quarter finals of his home ATP 500 event in Tokyo with a commanding 6-2 6-3 victory over Australian Jordan Thompson. The Japanese home favourite is a two-time winner at the event, getting up in 2012 and 2014, but it has been a decade-long break between drinks in his nation’s capital.

However after returning from ongoing injury issues, Nishikori is in the best form since consistently performing on Tour, and looks poised for his best crack at a title since winning Brisbane in 2019. Aside from that title, Nishikori last won in Memphis, 2016, with nine of his 10 other titles coming between 2012-15, including seven during his peak years of 2014-15 where he reached fourth in the world.

The victory marked the sixth time Nishikori has reached the last eight of the Japan Open Tennis Championships from 11 attempts, with the wildcard winning in an hour and 22 minutes. He broke the Australian’s serve five times from seven chances, while only being broken once himself.

“I think I played a little bit too good,” Nishikori joke post-match. “I surprised myself, maybe my team is also a little bit surprised. I played really well. Very solid, very focused. This is how I wanted to play. Play aggressive with not many mistakes. It was almost perfect today.”

Nishikori’s win was his seventh of 2024, still having plaguing injury issues that have for a long time, threatened to end the 34-year-old’s career. Though nearing the end, the 200th ranked Japanese star still has some fight left in him and will be eyeing off three more wins to make it a triple treat of Tokyo titles.

“For sure this was the best match so far this year,” Nishikori said. “Jordan is not an easy player to play against. He is very solid and has a good serve. Not easy to play against, but I really handled it well today.”

Nishikori will need to be at his very best as he now faces sixth seed Holger Rune in the quarter finals. The Dane took out the other remaining Japanese hope in Yoshihito Nishioka 6-2 6-4 in just over an hour in Rune’s first Tokyo appearance.

In other results, American Alex Michelsen proved too good for fellow qualifier and Australian Christopher O’Connell to win 6-1 6-4, while Czech Tomas Machac caused an upset over the other American in action Tommy Paul, with a come-from-behind 2-6 6-3 7-6 victory on the Colosseum.

AROUND THE WORLD

The other tournament in action on the ATP Tour is in Beijing where another 500 event takes place. The four top ranked players all won through to the quarters finals of the event, completing the eight players to make the crunch stage of the tournament.

World number one Jannik Sinner had the toughest battle of the lot, getting more than he bargained for against Russian lucky loser Roman Safiullin 3-6 6-2 6-3 to make it into the last eight along with Russian Daniil Medvedev who ground out a win against Frenchman Adrian Mannarino, 7-6 6-2.

The other two victors on the day were Czech Jiri Lehecka – who won from a set down against Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut 3-6 6-2 6-1 – and Italian Flavio Cobolli who skipped past Russian qualifier Pavel Kotov in straight sets, 6-4 6-2.