Kei Nishikori showed signs of rustiness in his season-opening match against Jared Donaldson.
Still, he found enough to hold off the American qualifier 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 yesterday and reach the Brisbane International quarter-finals.
Eighth-seeded David Ferrer did not make it that far, saving four match points on serve late in the third set before losing to Australian wild-card entry Jordan Thompson 4-6, 7-5, 7-5.
Photo: EPA
Thompson, who won only three of his 13 matches last year, is already 2-0 this week and reached his first ATP Tour-level quarter-final match. Next up is Nishikori.
Third-seeded Nishikori, a three-time semi-finalist in Brisbane, had a first-round bye and started the second round by racing to a 4-0 lead. However, Donaldson responded and won the next six games to take the opening set in less than an hour.
After jumping to a 3-0 lead in the second, Nishikori dropped another service game, but this time used his experience in pressure situations to calmly regain control.
“I had a great start, and then I had one bad game after 4-0,” Nishikori said. “I think it’s a matter of my concentration ... a mental thing. After that he started playing much better ... and his forehand was on fire.”
“It was really close. He had many chances to win a set and win the match, so, I mean, finally, in the last set I started playing like first couple of games and started dominating,” he added.
Sixth-seeded Lucas Pouille was trailing Kyle Edmund 6-3, 3-1 when he retired from their second-round match. Pouille had earlier had treatment for blisters on his feet after winning the first game of the second set.
A day after becoming the first player born in the 2000s to win a main-draw match at an elite WTA event, Destanee Aiava lost to two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4, 6-3 in the women’s second round.
“It’s pretty scary, [but] I learned a lot out of that match,” 16-year-old Aiava said, adding that she had gained “confidence, maybe, in my game and myself, knowing that I do belong here.”
Aiava is to return to her hometown, Melbourne, where she is to play an exhibition tournament next week to continue preparations for her first Grand Slam event.
Aiava has a wild-card entry for the Australian Open, where she is set to become the first player born this millennium to play a Grand Slam main-draw match.
Kuznetsova is to scheduled to play French Open champion and fourth seed Garbine Muguruza of Spain in the quarter-finals.
Second-seeded Dominika Cibulkova rallied from a set and a break down to beat Zhang Shuai 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 in her first competitive match since beating No. 1 Angelique Kerber to clinch the season-ending WTA Finals title.
Eighth-seeded Roberta Vinci beat Misaki Doi 6-4, 6-2 in another second-round match.
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