1918 was the last time a Japanese male tennis player made a a grand slam singles semi-final. That man was Ichiya Kumagae, a former Olympic silver medalist. Fast forward to today, and Japan’s new tennis star, Kei Nishikori has put himself in amongst the greats as he became the first man to attain that achievement in 96 years.
Nishikori, often recognised as ‘Special Kei’ for his blinding supreme talent on a tennis court, did the unthinkable and for the first time in his career not only made the semi-finals of a major, but also it’s the first time he’s beaten two Top 10 players back to back in a major; he achieved this with wins over Stan Wawrinka and Milos Raonic, the world numbers four and six respectively.
The reason the two Top 10 wins are so astonishing isn’t for lack of talent but it signals Kei Nishikori pushing through the restraining order his body has effectively placed on him for all these years. In 2009 , seemingly hampered by persistent injury after injury he was absent for three majors in that particular year with an elbow injury. But that’s not the only physical ailment Nishikori has had in his career smothered with injuries; a left groin problem and most recently a cyst on his foot had forced him to pull out of tournaments in the US Series leading up to the US Open. That effectively ruled him out of Cincinnati and Montreal, two big tournaments which help players to fine tune their match play going into the Championships.
Nishikori, renowned for his brutal offensive baseline style game which in effect revolves around working his opponent into leaving space for his ruthless backhand down the line, has had his most successful year on the tour. He broke Nadal’s stranglehold on the Barcelona Open with a title win on clay, which until this year was traditionally his worst surface. He had never beaten a player in the top ten on clay until that memorable win against Federer in Madrid last year, so to make the finals in Madrid a year later is pretty remarkable even for someone of Kei’s capabilities.
Often in the Japanese’s career we’ve grown accustomed to his body saying ‘No’ while his mind struggles to pull through the ‘W’ because of the signals his body is giving him during match play but after two marathon matches which saw him nearly play 9 hours of high calibre tennis, he’s starting to win that mental struggle he’s had in reacting positively to his body’s hindrances. That can only mean trouble for the rest of the tour.
In reality, Japan retains the name for the Rising Sun but in New York there’s only one Rising Sun- Kei Nishikori.
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