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Japanese veteran and Australian Open fifth seed Kei Nishikori will be out to improve his form and win in a more convincing manner when he takes on France’s Jeremy Chardy. Join The Roar for live scores from 11am (AEDT).
Nishikori might have made the final of the Brisbane International in the lead-up to the Australian Open, but that didn’t mean he was in good form.
By Nishikori’s own lofty standards, he was well down after being taken to three sets by Jordan Donaldson and losing to Grigor Dimitrov in the final after playing a scratchy match against an out-of-sorts Stan Wawrinka.
He didn’t do much better in his first round match at the Open either, taking on a decent player in Andrey Kuznetsov and being pushed all the way to five sets after coming back from a set down.
Chardy, on the other hand, is one of those players with the experience to match many of the top players, but just not enough talent to get the job done at the end of the match.
He kicked off his season in Qatar Open in Doha, getting absolutely destroyed by Andy Murray in the first round and playing nothing like his best tennis.
He then went to Auckland and had a very easy run through the first couple of rounds, including a walkover over Feliciano Lopez, before being knocked out by eventual winner Jack Sock.
Because Chardy hasn’t really taken on any similar players it’s hard to make a judgement on his form, and a 4-0 win with Nicolas Almagro retiring doesn’t help in that regard.
The pair have previously met on seven occasions and the head-to-head is a little more even than might be expected, with Nishikori winning four and Chardy three.
Four of those seven meetings were on hard court, although two came before Nishikori had really made a name for himself. The most recent two meetings saw Nishikori take big wins in each.
The winner of this match will move into the third round and take on either Lukas Lacko or Dudi Sela.
Prediction
Chardy hasn’t won a match against Nishikori in four years, and their rankings suggest he won’t stand a chance but there is more to this match than that.
Nishikori has struggled for form a little in the lead-up and that continued in the first round while Chardy looked strong against Almagro and for a player of his calibre produced good results in Auckland.
It’s doubtful the Frenchman will get the job done, but he will push Nishikori.
Nishikori in four sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of this match from 11am (AEDT) on Hisense Arena and don’t forget to add your comments in the section below.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde