Kei Nishikori opened his home Olympics in Tokyo with a 6-3 6-4 win over 5th seed Andrey Rublev.
The former US Open finalist produced some of his best tennis to dominate the Russian to reach the second round.
Nishikori played some sublime tennis in the opening set using some great angles to dictate play.
Despite being broken in the seventh game, the world number 68 broke for a second time to take the opening set 6-3.
The Russian couldn’t outpower the Japanese star as he failed to create a break point in the second set.
A solitary break in the seventh game of the second set was enough as he secured a monumental victory.
After the match Nishikori told the ITF website how great it felt to put in a performance like that, “It’s been a while since I’ve been playing like this,” the 2016 bronze medallist said.
“I was struggling playing Top-10 players the last couple of months, or maybe all this year. This is the first time I’m playing a very solid match, so I’m happy of course beating Rublev, but also happy with my tennis today.”
Nishikori also spoke about playing at home in the Olympics and what that does to his game, “It’s good to be playing at home, especially this site,” Nishikori explained.
“I’ve been playing here a lot – sometimes it feels like home, though with no spectators it’s tough. But I have to enjoy playing here – I know many people are watching on TV, so I just have to focus on what I have to do on the court.”
Nishikori will now face Marcus Giron next who battled past Norbert Gombos in three sets.
Meanwhile Stefanos Tsitsipas became the first male Greek player since 1928 to win a match at the Olympics.
Tsitsipas recovered from a break down in the third set to beat Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3 3-6 6-3 in 1 hour and 54 minutes.
Tsitsipas will now look to get revenge for his Wimbledon loss as he plays Frances Tiafoe in the second round.
There were also wins for Diego Schwartzman, Alexander Zverev and Karen Khachanov while the only Brit in singles standing Liam Broady edged past Francisco Cerundolo 7-5 4-6(4) 6-2 in three hours and eleven minutes.
Broady will face 7th seed and Wimbledon semi-finalist Hubert Hurkacz in the second round on Tuesday.
