Kei Nishikori believed his career was over in 2009 – Tennis News
Japanese number one tennis star, Kei Nishikori, was absolutely demoralized after incurring an injury that kept him out of action from quite some time. He though that his career was already over before it hit the peak, not to forget
the youngster is just 22-years-old. He still have nightmares thinking about the dark time of 2009 when he missed most of the season due to niggling elbow injury. However, the surgery seems to have fixed his issues and hasn’t hampered his shot making ability.
The heroic comeback to the tennis circuit that witnessed a cracking triumph at the Rakuten Japan Open in Tokyo helped Nishikori to forget about his injury and raised his ranking by two places. He outplayed the Canadian number one,
Milos Raonic, in the grand finale of the event; beating the in-form 21-year-old in three sets 7-6(5), 3-6, 6-0.
Nishikori stated, “I wondered if I could continue to play. My ranking went down to over 100. But every player has to cope with an injury. I just want to keep myself healthy.” In 2008, the youngster entered the Delray Beach event
as an underdog and scuttled past his rivals to claim the first Association of Tennis Professionals title at the age of 18. Soon, the media reporters made him the potential Asian hero but the slump in 2009 forced him out of the limelight. However, he is back
with a bang and wants to register more victories under his belt.
Talking about the surfaces which he likes playing, Nishikori confessed, “My favourite surface is hard courts, for sure. I also defeated a top-10 player this week. So it was a very good tournament for me, looking forward to the
following tournaments.” While stating about the Top-10 player, Nishikori was pointing at the major upset of the second seed Czech superstar, Tomas Berdych, who stooped to him in the quarter-finals of Rakuten Japan Open.
“Hopefully, I can reach the last eight in the Australian Open or the US Open and win the Masters tournament. I think my dream in my childhood days gave me the motivation to do well in tennis,” Nishikori added. It looks like the
small man from Japan is eyeing big trophies after a miraculous performance at home soil. He is definitely eyeing a Grand Slam trophy up next and that’s a very huge task considering the hold of the Top-4 athletes in that regard. He will have to defy huge odds
to accomplish his goal.
Tags: