Japanese Kei Nishikori Reaches the Final of Abierto Mexicano Telcel at Acapulco

Just as in Dubai, the final of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel at Mexico will also feature tournaments no.1 and no.2 seeds, justifying the organizers faith in the seed placements at the start. In Saturday’s final against Spain’s David Ferrer, Japanese tennis sensation Kei Nishikori will strive for a back-to-back title victory this season after he emerged victorious in the Memphis Open 10 days ago. The same will be true in the case of Ferrer, who took the Rio Open crown last week. The stars of the Japanese have been on the rise since the Australian Open 2014 and he is already on the verge of knocking off Rafael Nadal from the world no.3 spot. In their semifinal matches at Acapulco, while Nishikori defeated South African Kevin Anderson, while David Ferrer was clinical in disposing off American qualifier Ryan Harrison.

No.1 seed Kei Nishikori of Japan required three sets to defeat the big serving Anderson 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in the first semifinal of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel on Friday. Nishikori looked like cruising to an easy victory but the fifth-seeded Anderson rallied midway through the second set and forced the decider. The South African carried on the momentum and broke Nishikori early in the third set. But the Japanese broke right back and finished the match in 2 hours, 2 minutes. Despite the victory, the 25-year old Nishikori did not exactly excel in the match. He had a poor 42% first serve, though he won 76% of his points on the first serve. The Japanese lagged in ace count as he sent down 6 aces to Anderson’s 11. Nishikori had 12 break opportunities but he could only convert only 4 out of them. On his part the Japanese yielded 5 chances for Anderson for breaking his serve, of which the South African succeeded in converting 2. At times, it was difficult to choose between the two players as they were locked at a set score of 1-1. Nishikori prevailed in the third by controlling his unforced errors and better court coverage.

In the second semifinal played later in the evening, Spain’s David Ferrer defeated American qualifier Ryan Harrison after losing the first set 4-6. Coming back strongly in the next two sets, the Spaniard did not allow Harrison a single game to end the match in 1 hour and 52 minutes at 4-6, 6-0, 6-0. The reverse that Ferrer suffered in the first set was attributed to his poor first serve percentage. But his service improved as the game progressed. Ferrer is aware of what awaits him in Saturday’s final. In a post-match chat, Ferrer admitted that he would need to be very strong physically and mentally against the Japanese. He also said that he the Japanese was a very dangerous player, who is strongly committed to his beliefs in winning matches that become tough in later stages. 2015 has been a good year for the Spaniard so far and Ferrer has no desire to put a stop to that. If he wins at Acapulco, it will be his third title of the 2015 season after he took the Doha trophy in January and triumphed last week by defeating Fabio Fognini on clay in Rio de Janeiro.

In men’s doubles, top seeds Ivan Dodig/ Marcelo Melo won their semifinal match against no.4 seed Juan Sebastian Cabal/Robert Farah 4-6, 7-6, 10-4. The Croatian/Brazilian duo will now have to beat Mariusz Fyrstenberg/Santiago Gonzales, who came through to the final by beating Victor Estrella Burgos/Max Mirnyi 6-3, 7-6.