Kei Nishikori and Marin Cilic booked their place in the last eight at the Brisbane International after overcoming tricky second round matches.
Second seed Nishikori continued his unbeaten record against Mikhail Kukushkin with a 6-4, 6-3, win over the world No.65. Playing his first match of the year after receiving a first round bye in the tournament, Nishikori made a slow start to the match as he was broken in the first game. The world No.8 faced six break points in his three opening service games, fending off five of them. After the slow start, Nishikori managed to break back in the fourth game to level at 2-2. The Japanese tennis star then got another decisive break to lead 5-3 before serving the set out to love. During the opening set the second seed kept applying pressure to Kukushkin’s second serve. The Kazakh won only 5/12 of his second service points.
Nishikori successfully continued his winning momentum into the start of the second set as he broke his opponent for the third time in the match to establish a 2-0 lead. Kukushkin kept valiantly battling in the match but failed to find a way to break back. He came close to leveling the set with one break point chance before it was dismissed by Nishikori. The 26-year-old close out the match after exactly 90 minutes on the court.
Following his fourth consecutive win over Kukushkin, Nishikori was positive about his first performance of the year.
“I thought it was a great match,” Nishikori said after his win.
“I didn’t start quite well — I think he really started well.”
“He was playing aggressive, great backhand, and I tried it mix up. I think I went to his backhand too much (but) I tried to move the ball around and start playing better.”
In the quarterfinal Nishikori will play eighth seed Dominic Thiem. The Austrian eased his way past Denis Kudla 6-3, 6-2. Thiem was particularly impressive on his first serve, winning 85% of them (28/33). The last eight clash will be the second meeting between Thiem and Nishikori. Last time the Japanese player defeated Thiem 7-6(4), 7-4, in Halle, Germany.
Finally Marin Cilic overcame stiff opposition from teenage sensation Hyeon Chung to win 7-5, 7-6(3). The former US Open champion fired 18 aces and won 84% of his first service points. Chung was also impressive on her serve, winning 65% of his total service points. In both sets Cilic broke his opponent’s serve at the critical moments to secure a straight sets victory.
Despite producing 18 aces in today’s match, Cilic has stated that he hopes to improve his serve this year.
“In 2015 I didn’t serve as well as in 2014,” Cilic admitted earlier this week.
“Even though the serve was still pretty good, I think I had some space there to be more lethal with it. So I think that’s going to be one of the focuses this season for me as well.”
In the next round Cilic will play either Bernard Tomic or 2010 champion Radek Stepanek.
