Kei Nishikori’s & Marin Cilic's marathon match
147th ranked Japanese rising star Kei Nishikori shocked all bystanders last night when he beat out 11th seeded Croatian Marin Cilic at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre. The match lasted a mind-boggling four hours and fifty-nine minutes. That’s nearly five hours spent running, hitting and battling for survival in 35°C heat. There were cramps and there were injuries, and at the end of it all, everyone will agree, there was quite the show.
The five-set match saw Nishikori commit 77 unforced errors, but despite that and the intense cramping in his legs, this Japanese warrior saw the game through to the end.
“I was thinking about it in the fourth set mostly” said Nishikori. “Even if I win this, I have to play one more set. It’s not going to be easy for me, with the cramping. But I was able to fight through, yeah.”
Cilic himself finished the match with 93 unforced errors and he lost the second set tiebreaker after committing a double fault at set point; this was when the tide really turned for Nishikori. “I knew he had a good serve and good second serve,” said Nishikori, “I was not returning well until the third or fourth set.”
The score of this epic duel was 5-7, 7-6(6), 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-1 - enough to make anyone sweat. Nishikori is quoted as saying, “I’m pretty tired, of course, I was cramping from the second set. But I kept fighting, fighting.” And fight he did.
Three of the five harrowing sets went beyond six games with deuces on the first, second and fourth. Both players played well but it wasn’t their strategy or their technique which caught people’s attention, it was their sheer determination.
Nishikori has compact strokes and great timing; it isn’t his strength or power that makes him a tough opponent but his ability to mix up the play. He can play from anywhere in the court and groundstrokes are his specialty.
Two years ago Nishikori became the first Japanese man to reach the fourth round at the US Open since 1937, and he did the same this year, just a few days away from his third round match against No. 21 seed Albert Montanes of Spain. The question Nishikori is asking himself now is, can he recover in time for the highly anticipated match?
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