Speaking on Eurosport the seven-time Grand Slam winner commented on many injuries. The Japanese has always failed to play a full season: in 2018 he missed the Australian Open and then he started his amazing comeback from being outside the top 200 rankings to crack the top 10 again, but now the Japanese was forced to retire from his quarter-final match against Novak Djokovic due to a back injury.
Nishikori played a five-hour match against Pablo Carreno Busta on Monday and he did not manage to recover properly. Its so unfortunate, Wilander said. You can try to find explanations and reasons why, one that comes to my mind is that maybe when he is working too hard, running too much in his matches, being physically exhausted, maybe he should consider changing his style and play shorter points.
But then of course he would not have the same success. Maybe the pressure he has in Japan – he is one of the biggest stars in sports history -. But its clear now that Nishikoris chances to win a Grand Slam playing seven matches over two weeks are getting smaller and smaller because of his physical part.
Wilander also analyzes Milos Raonics campaign. The Canadian lost to Lucas Pouille in the quarters. You remember when we talked about Kei Nishikori being tired and playing a lot of matches. If you think at Raonics draw, the match against Kyrgios has been emotional.
Stan Wawrinka in the second round, the Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert and of course Sascha Zverev. That takes a lot out of you, he was playing great throughout the whole tournament but today he was not serving and moving as well as in the previous rounds.
I am not sure what his mindset was – he was trying to take pace off – his first serve wasnt as penetrating, it did not look like he had such a big serve. I was surprised about Raonics level today. ALSO READ: Djokovic would beat Roger Federer in Australian Open final – Evert
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