After Kyrgios’ upset over Milos Raonic last night, everyone was curious about how he will match up against Nishikori, playing style wise a completely opposite player. Nishikori started the match well, as he got an early break on Kyrgios at 1-1. Nishikori developed a lead of 0-40, Kyrgios saved the first two break points, but lost the game nonetheless. Nishikori kept the lead of the break, not losing more than two points on any of his service games. At 3-5, Kyrgios was serving and got broken again, to end the set. Kyrgios was very vulnerable on his second serves, winning only 44%. Nishikori showed a great serving performance, winning 76% of all points on his serve. Kyrgios didn’t have his best returning day, which was completely unlike his yesterday’s match against Raonic.
Nishikori started the second set very strongly as well, getting a lead of 2-0. He was, however, broken back right the next game. Both players were strong on their serves, Kyrgios getting his percentage of points won after first serve to 72 %, but Nishikori was still very solid with 74% of all points after his serve. After many games of no break points, Kyrgios was down 5-6. He got to 40-30, so it looked like the set was going into a tiebreak. However Nishikori fought hard, and on his second match point, he went to the finals of Miami Open.
