Kei Nishikori sinks Brian Dabul at the Delray Beach Championships
Kei Nishikori beat Brian Dabul of Argentina in his first round match at the Delray Beach International Championships on Tuesday night.
The Japanese ousted his opponent in a straight sets victory to advance to the second round of the tournament. After an hour and thirty eight minutes battle, the final score settled at 6-2, 7-6.
It was a low serve game, with a few aces being hit. Nishikori was better at his second serve, having a percentage of 79. The Japanese had a tremendous start to the contest but had to work hard to take over the second set. Dabul had a sluggish start and took
his time to settle down. The Argentine is known for his powerful serve game. He failed to serve up to the mark and delivered merely 54 per cent of his first serve. Dabul kept losing points at the crucial moments of the game, which wore him out later.
Nishikori took the early advantage of the slower start of the Argentine and grabbed a service break to lead the set. His aggressive approach worked perfectly and included frequent forays to the net. Dabul concentrated more on his defensive strategy and missed
many convertible opportunities in the set.
The Argentine got a break chance in the first set but he couldn’t cash it in, building more pressure on him. Nishikori successfully converted both his break serve chances and took the opener at 6-2.
The following set was far more competitive than the first one for Nishikori. His Argentine opponent served very well, with 75 percent of the first serve hitting its marks. Dabul converted two of the three serve break chances to his advantage but the Japanese
retaliated by doing the same.
The second set kept on moving neck-to-neck until a tie breaker was involved at 6-6. The decider went out to be a nail biting thriller as Dabul threw everything at his rival to stay in the match. A mini-break towards the end of the tie breaker made all important
difference, as Nishikori sealed the second set at 7-6 to make it to the second round of the event.
Nishikori will be squaring off against the American wildcard, James Blake, in the next stage of the competition. Blake made it to the second round after defeating Benjamin Becker of Germany by 7-5, 6-4. Dudi Sela of Israel was the last player to qualify
for the second round on Tuesday night. He defeated the Aussie qualifier Marinko Matsevic in an exciting three set contest, with the final score 3-6, 6-1 and 6-2.
Sela lost the opening set of the contest, courtesy to his sloppy footwork and high error count. He recovered very skilfully to bounce back strongly in the next set and completely blew away the Australian to take the second set at 6-1.
The decisive set was never a challenging task for the Israeli as his opponent crumbled under the match pressure. Dejected Matsevic succumbed to Sela in the third set at 6-2. Sela will face off against the in-form Croat, Ivan Dodig, in the next round encounter.
Dodig ousted Igor Kunitsyn of Russia in his first round match.
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