Aurélien Canot, Media365, published on Thursday March 21, 2024 at 9:14 p.m.
Kei Nishikori played Thursday against the Austrian Ofner, 40th in the ranking, his first match since the end of last July in Atlanta. The Japanese, finalist of the tournament in 2017 and invited by the organizers for this edition, lost in two sets (6-3, 6-4).
Kei Nishikori (34 years old) did not do it again. Last June, after almost two years of absence to treat a very complex problem in one of his knees, the Japanese made a rather incredible return to competition by lifting the trophy of the Mexican Challenger tournament in Palmas del Mar from his first tournament. The former member of the Top 5 in the world, now 351st in the ranking, dreamed of such a thunderous comeback, this Thursday at Mami, where the organizers, by sending him an invitation, allowed him to find his way back to the courts after again a long absence. When he appeared against the Austrian Sebastian Ofner on Thursday in Florida, Nishikori had not played an official match since July 28 in Atlanta in the quarter-finals against Taylor Fritz, taking advantage of his ranking protected to regain health. The finalist of the 2014 US Open lost sharply that day to the American, before disappearing from the radar again, when there was talk of him participating in the US Open as well as the Tokyo tournament, on his home soil, without knowing if he had been caught up or not by his knee problem.
Nishikori was an illusion in the second set only
On Thursday, Nishikori did not weigh much more against the 40th in the world than he did against Fritz last summer. Beaten in two sets (6-3, 6-4) at the end of a first match in eight months for him which did not last forever (1h20), the Japanese who had announced his new comeback via a video of himself in training last month never recovered in the first set from his completely failed start (3-0 for Ofner after three games). In the second round, the former number 4 in the ranking got closer to the level which had allowed him to compete in the final on the clay of Monte-Carlo in 2019 and that of… Miami two years earlier , but without managing to slow down the momentum of his opponent, for whom a single break was enough to finish the job. It is now necessary to continue for Nishikori that he will continue the tournaments and will not disappear again, as was the case in 2021 and 2023.
2024-03-21 20:14:00
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