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Kei Nishikori will be up against the odds when he takes on second seed for the US Open and Olympic Champion Andy Murray in the quarter-finals. Join The Roar for live scores from 3:30am (AEST).
Nishikori has been in solid but not outstanding form during the final grand slam of the year thus far, and will need to pick up the pace in every element of his game if he is to outplay Murray.
After a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics, he would have been confident of a deep run through the US Open, and that is exactly what he has got.
He hasn’t had any totally easy matches though and has spent a lot of time on court, which for a match against Murray isn’t the ideal way to prepare.
Coming into a match against Murray, you know the one thing there will be a lot of is running – if you want to stay in the match, then you must try to match his insane defensive levels.
Nishikori winning his first three matches against Benajmin Becker, Karen Khachanov and Nicolas Mahut in four sets each then probably wasn’t the greatest and leaves plenty of questions about his form.
While he beat Ivo Karlovic in straight sets, Murray is going to be a massive leap up.
Murray himself, since winning the gold medal at the Olympics has been his usual consistent self, losing the final at Cincinnati but not looking challenged otherwise.
He has only dropped a single set since arriving in New York which came back in the third round against Paolo Lorenzi. His fourth round match against Grigor Dimitrov descended into an absolute masterclass of Tennis, and at this point it is tough seeing anyone on the circuit beat him.
His serving during that match was some of the biggest in his career, and add that to his defence, it sent a message to every other player in the tournament that he is ready to add to his Wimbledon success.
The pair have matched up on eight occasions with Nishikori only ever winning two sets outside of the match he won. Nearly all of them have been on the hard court.
The winner will move onto face either Stan Wawrinka or Juan Martin Del Potro in the semi-finals.
Prediction
You can’t go past Murray – he is all class and will get this done fairly comfortably.
Murray in four sets.
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