By Chris Oddo | Sunday, April 25, 2015
Kei Nishikori successfully completed his title defense at Barcelona, taking down Pablo Andujar in two tight sets.
Photo Source/ Alex Caparros, Getty Europe
Beast of Barcelona? Klei Nishikori? Either way you slice it, Japan’s No. 1 Kei Nishikori is establishing himself as one of the game’s premier clay-court players once again this spring.
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Nishikori overcame break deficits in both sets to rally past Spain’s Pablo Andujar for his second career clay-court title and ninth overall on Sunday, 6-4, 6-4.
The victory means that Nishikori will pull a little closer to Rafael Nadal in the race for a Top 4 seeding at Roland Garros, as Nadal failed to defend his quarterfinal points from last year.
Nishikori has an inauspicious beginning to the match when he was broken in the first game, but he broke Andujar, who was playing in his seventh career final (all on clay), right back for 1-all.
Nishikori would fend off the inspired Andujar for the remainder of the set before breaking in the tenth game to clinch the opener, 6-4.
Andujar, who saw his record against Top 10 players drop to 4-17 with the loss, broke again to open the second set and this time he consolidated. Elevating his game, the Spaniard saw off two break opportunities to take a 3-1 lead and began to pressure Nishikori’s service games quite a bit as well.
But it turned out to be all four naught as Nishikori secured a key break to level at four-all when his crisp backhand return proved too tough for the Spaniard to handle at the net.
After holding serve, Nishikori then rallied from 0-30 down in the tenth game of the second set, taking advantage of an Andujar double-fault at 30-all then crushing a backhand down-the-line return winner to secure his title defense.
Japan’s No. 1 improved to an impressive 21-1 whilst seeded first at ATP events, his only loss coming earlier this season in Acapulco when he fell to David Ferrer in the final.
Nishikori improves his career head-to-head record with Andujar to 3-1, and the 25-year-old now owns a 26-5 record for 2015, as well as a 38-17 career record on clay. In completing his successful Barcelona title defense, Nishikori joins clay-court luminaries Nadal, Thomas Muster, Mats Wilander, Ivan Lendl, Ilie Nastase and Andres Gomez as one of seven to have achieved the feat.