FORMER world number four Kei Nishikori is finding glimpses of his best form with a come-from-behind first round win over young American Alex Michelsen in Montreal overnight. The National Bank Open – or Canadian Open – handed Nishikori’s his biggest win in more than three years, getting up 3-6 7-5 6-4.

Nishikori’s last win at an ATP 1000 Masters event was 2021 at Indian Wells, and while injury has played a huge part of the veteran’s last couple of years, the Japanese star was thrilled at overcoming a tough opponent.

“It’s been a long time,” Nishikori said post-match. “It means a lot, especially the way I played in the third set. First and second set, many ups and downs and I was missing a lot of balls. Third set, I was playing pretty good tennis I think, good defence and when I needed to, I was having good movement and playing aggressive. It was working really well.”

In a match that lasted two hours and 33 minutes, the now 576th ranked Nishikori used his protected ranking to qualify, and bested the 19-year-old American in an impressive comeback. After dropping the first set, he only conceded one break and broke three times himself, while being far more efficient off his second serve points (63 to 44 per cent).

One of his most solid performances since returning from injury, Nishikori converted four breaks in total from 12 points and won 65 per cent of his service points to make life difficult for the world number 55. In what was only his fifth tournament of the year, the 34-year-old recorded 22 forehand winners to advance through to the next round.

“I just needed to keep believing in myself, that’s the only thing I can do. To be aggressive, start hitting more forehands and backhands [down the] line. I think that started working well in the second set,” Nishikori said.

Life does not get any easier for Nishikori in the second round though, with the 2016 finalist taking on eighth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas in the pair’s third head-to-head clash. Each player has one win to their name against the other.

AROUND THE COURTS

Danish 13th seed Holger Rune got more than he bargained for against Spanish lucky loser Roberto Bautista Agut, with the former top 20 player pushing the young gun to three sets before Rune got up, 6-2 3-6 6-2. Rune will now face another Spaniard in Pablo Carreno Busta who scraped past Hungarian Fabian Marozsan in three sets, 6-7 7-6 6-3.

In other results, Portugal’s Nuno Borges continued his good 2024 form to defeat Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic in a come-from-behind victory, 5-7 6-4 6-4. Russian 16th seed Karen Khachanov, Argentinian Tomas Etcheverry and Italian Lorenzo Sonego all secured their places in the Round of 32 with day one wins.