By Richard Pagliaro | Sunday January 15, 2017
Kei Nishikori needed three hours, 34 minutes to subdue Andrey Kuznetsov in five sets.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve
Exhaling deeply, Kei Nishikori tugged on the visor of his vanilla baseball cap sending drops of scattering to the court.
On a sweltering opening day at the Australian Open, Andrey Kuznetsov tested Nishikori’s fitness for five sets.
Australian Open: Live Blog
The fifth seed shed some sweat and solidified his status as a closer.
Nishikori stumbled trying to finish in four, but fought through for a 5-7, 6-1, 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-2 victory to advance to the Australian Open second round for the seventh straight year.
"A little bit slow start today. I didn't quite play great tennis in the beginning, but especially in the fifth set I think I was really focused and played good tennis," Nishikori said. "So, yeah, try not to happen again, you know, to play long match like this. But, yeah, like I said, fifth set was pretty good, so I think I'm in good shape for next round."
The 27-year-old Nishikori raised his record in deciding sets to 101-30—the best ATP record in deciding sets in Open Era history.
It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t always pretty and the three-time quarterfinalist worked harder than he probably would have liked during three three-hour, 34-minute grind.
Ultimately, Nishikori drained the 25-year-old Russian’s legs in the decider.
Meeting for the third time in the last four majors, both men knew what to expect from each other. Nishikori swept Kuznetsov in straight sets at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon last year.
In the rematch, Kuznetsov broke twice in a row to snatch the opening set.
Finding his rhythm, Nishikori rolled through the next two sets and was in charge in the fourth-set tie break.
Nishikori looked poised to close the match in four sets as he built a 5-2 tie break lead. Kuznetsov came back reeling off six of the next seven points to force the fifth set.
"I think I let him come back fourth set. I should have finished that set," Nishikori said. "Especially I was up tiebreak, but I think he played well from the beginning. Fifth set I start playing much better. Yeah, it was tough, really tough match."
The aggressive baseliner, who converted nine of 12 break points in the match, broke for a 3-1 lead in the decider as Kuznetsov struggled to push up on serve.
Kuznetsov clanked his fourth double fault to end the match.
Recovering from a draining opener will be crucial for Nishikori, who faces a fresh Jeremy Chardy in round two. The 71st-ranked Frenchman held a 4-0 lead when his opening-round opponent, Nicolas Almagro, retired. Chardy spent just 23 minutes on court—three hours, 11 minutes less than Nishikori.