Nishikori – Muller: 05.01.2025 09:30 CEST<\/strong> Kei Nishikori has won nine straight matches. In his last tournament in 2024, Nishikori won the Challenger title in Helsinki, winning against Nardi in the final. Here in Hong Kong, Kei dominated the opening round match against Shapovalov, winning straight sets. Nishikori saved both breakpoints and played almost his best tennis. Seeing Kei back on the court like he never left is good. In the second round, Kei defeated Khachanov in three tight sets. After losing the first set 4-6, Nishikori stepped up his level and turned the match around. Kei was trailing 0-2 in the second set but kept believing in himself. In the quarterfinals, Kei defeated Norrie in three sets, as we had predicted. The match was utterly unpredictable until the middle of the deciding set, when Nishikori went on to win four games in a row. Kei served well throughout the match, losing his serve only once.<\/p>\n Today, in the semifinals, Juncheng Shang retired in the first set against Nishikori. Shang lasted around only 20 minutes before retiring due to an illness. With this result, Nishikori will return to the top 100 in the rankings for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n Alexandre Muller has won four of his last five matches. Here in Hong Kong, Alexandre won his opening match against Huesler in three tight sets. After losing the first set 2-6, Muller stepped up his level and turned the match around. Alexandre spent over two hours on the court but looked surprisingly fit in his second-round match. Muller played the longest match of this season in the second round against Kecmanovic. He won the match after spending almost four hours on the court. The Frenchman saved two match points and trailed 1-4 in the deciding tiebreak. He also had a chance to close out the match before the deciding tiebreak when he was 5-4 up and had consecutive match points on his serve. In the quarterfinals, Muller upset Fils in three sets. After losing the first set 3-6, Muller again found the strength and started playing exceptionally well in the second and third sets.<\/p>\n Today, in the semifinals, Muller once again turned the match around. After losing the first set 4-6, Muller once again successfully came back. He even trailed 1-3 in the second set. The deciding set was one-sided from the start. Once again, Muller spent over two hours on the court. Alexandre spent much time on the court this week, so we are curious to see if he still has something left in his tank for the final match.<\/p>\n According to the bookies, Nishikori is the favorite in this match, and we agree. Kei has been phenomenal throughout the whole week. On the other hand, Muller was trailing in every single match but came back each time. The Frenchman spent almost 10 hours on the court this week, which is a lot. We expect Kei to be more rested for this match and dominate easily.<\/p>\n That being said, Nishikori winning in straight sets is a value bet.<\/strong><\/p>\n Value bet\/ the best odds: Kei Nishikori winning 2-0 @2.10 @bet365<\/p>\n <\/strong>Main Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ATP 250 Hong Kong final Nishikori – Muller: 05.01.2025 09:30 CEST H2H: first meeting Kei Nishikori has won nine straight matches. In his last tournament in 2024, Nishikori won the Challenger title in Helsinki, winning against Nardi in the final. Here in Hong Kong, Kei dominated the opening round match against Shapovalov, winning straight sets. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5045,"featured_media":58420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17400],"tags":[13556,776,2397,17300,844,146,4359],"class_list":["post-77385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-bets","tag-alexandre-muller","tag-denis-shapovalov","tag-jaume-munar","tag-juncheng-shang","tag-karen-khachanov","tag-kei-nishikori","tag-miomir-kecmanovic"],"modified_by":"David Barisic","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5045"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77386,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77385\/revisions\/77386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nH2H: first meeting<\/strong><\/p>\nBest Bet to Make<\/h2>\n