Kei Nishikori reveals he regularly follows Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz's matches, especially the one of the Italian tennis star, because he finds his game style "ideal."
Throughout his career, Nishikori has battled injury issues and has had numerous surgeries. After undergoing two surgeries on his right elbow in 2019, the Japanese briefly played in 2020 - and just as he got back to being healthy and competing in 2021 - he started to once again deal with physical setbacks. The former world No. 4 then had hip surgery in early 2022 and went without action for a year and a half.
While recovering from his surgery, Nishikori had a chance to watch Sinner and Alcaraz transform into one of the best players in the game. And while the 35-year-old is back to competing in 2025, he still loves to watch the two top-ranked players in the game whenever he can.
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"I basically follow all of matches of Sinner and Alcaraz. Especially Sinner's play is my ideal tennis style, so I watch him as visualization training. Sinner really plays ideal tennis for me," the 2014 US Open runner-up told Japanese media.
Nishikori admits his comeback is all but easy
Nishikori started his 2025 season in time and even reached the final of the ATP 250 tournament in Hong Kong before losing to Alexandre Muller. The Japanese regularly competed until the Cincinnati Masters, where he picked up a back injury.
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This week, the 12-time ATP champion returned to action for the first time in three and a half months and defeated Taisei Ichikawa and Sanhui Shin to reach the Yokohama Challenger quarterfinal.
"Now it takes a longer time to come back, it was really like I had to go back to square one after Cincinnati, so I've thought a lot about whether I still have motivation to overcome this even if it takes a year, half a year. I still have that doubt in my mind tbh, but I'm trying with motivation while talking to myself all the time. Body-wise, it's tough. But I can still enjoy going to practice or gym, this process. If I come to feel it tough... I'm afraid of that," Nishikori admitted.
