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The story
Tennis player Kei Nishikori lost in straight sets to US Open semifinalist Frances Tiafoe at the Kinoshita Group Japan Open on October 1, bringing his 19-year professional career to a close. After the match, a tearful Nishikori said, “I wanted to show a bit of a better match.” News of the retirement of a player who once reached the ATP Finals and climbed to a career-high ranking of world No. 4 drew an outpouring of appreciation in 5ch threads, while discussion also ranged across the history of Japan’s top-ranked players and hopes for the next generation.
Kei Nishikori Ends 19-Year Pro Career in Tears: “I Wanted to Show a Bit of a Better Match” — Loses Final Official Match in Straight Sets to US Open Semifinalist Tiafoe at Kinoshita Group Japan Open
10/1 (Thu) 15:44
Kei Nishikori after his defeat (Photo: Go Furukawa) (The Hochi Shimbun)
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Well done, Kei.
Thanks for everything.
Well done.
We probably won't see another player like Kei Nishikori for a long time.
Though who knows — maybe he'll surprise us as a coach.
He's probably even out-earned Murray.
Thanks for everything, Kei.
The Tour Finals back when Djokovic was winning three Slams a year were basically a sideshow, right?
One guy miles ahead of everybody, and then the rest of the pack (just slightly less mediocre than each other).
Well done.
He'd get rattled whenever a mentally tough player got in his face — that was really the only gap between him and the top guys.
His actual tennis skill is the best Japan has ever produced.
Not sure about the mental side, but his stamina was low even by Japanese standards — Shuzo [Matsuoka] himself has said as much.
Being 10cm taller could've hurt other parts of his game too, so that kind of hypothetical doesn't really mean much.
Putting up that record while four tennis aliens (the Big Four) were active is just insane.
Even Nadal posted a comment about his retirement on social media.
Nishikori himself said you need to go abroad early and line up sponsors.
Apparently the quirks of courts built in Japan end up molding players into a style that just can't compete on the world stage.
I think he ranks among the greatest athletes in Japanese sports history.
Thank you for everything.
The real-life Ryoma Echizen (the tennis prodigy from Prince of Tennis) — that's Kei Nishikori.
Just unlucky that his career overlapped with the Big Three era.
Sorry, I misremembered that.
It was Cilic in the final — Wawrinka was the quarterfinal.
Didn't know he had it in him too lol
Nothing strange about a hot-blooded guy like him shedding tears.
Shuzo basically gave him the push that launched his talent in the first place.
There's actually a pretty great bond there.
Forget Nishikori-class — we haven't even seen a Nishioka-class player (3 tour titles, one ATP 500 final, two Grand Slam round-of-16s, ranked 24)
or a Sugita-class player (1 tour title, ranked 36),
or even a Taro Daniel-class player (1 tour title, ranked 58)
in about 10 years.
Mochizuki once reached the round of 16 at a Slam, grass-only, and it looked like matching Daniel's level would be easy — but he hasn't been able to win elsewhere and can't even hold a steady spot in the Top 100.
No. 3 — 1933 — Jiro Sato
No. 4 — 1921 — Zenzo Shimizu
No. 4 — 2015 — Kei Nishikori ← *
No. 7 — 1921 — Ichiya Kumagae
No. 7 — 1926 — Takeichi Harada
No. 7 — 1938 — Jiro Yamagishi
No. 24 — 2023 — Yoshihito Nishioka
No. 36 — 2017 — Yuichi Sugita
No. 46 — 1992 — Shuzo Matsuoka
No. 47 — 2012 — Go Soeda
No. 58 — 2024 — Taro Daniel
No. 60 — 2012 — Tatsuma Ito
No. 72 — 2023 — Yosuke Watanuki
No. 74 — 1974 — Jun Kamiwazumi
No. 78 — 2024 — Yasutaka Uchiyama
No. 92 — 2023 — Shintaro Mochizuki
No. 133 — 2026 — Rei Sakamoto
Why were Japanese players so good 100 years ago?
Did tennis catch on in Japan earlier than in the West?
🇪🇸 Rafael Nadal, with 21 million followers,
also paid tribute to Kei Nishikori's retirement.
Getting a comment from Nadal himself on your retirement is just next-level.
Among active Japanese players, Naomi Osaka is probably the only one who could pull that off.
Background and Key Points
Kei Nishikori became the first Japanese man to reach a Grand Slam final, at the 2014 US Open, and in 2015 he hit his career-high world ranking of No. 4. His prime overlapped with the era dominated by the so-called “Big Four” — Djokovic, Federer, Nadal, and Murray — and while he never matched them in title count, his presence on tour and his commercial value stood out. Looking at the all-time highest rankings for Japanese players discussed in the thread, Zenzo Shimizu and Jiro Sato both reached world No. 3-4 back in the 1920s-30s, which makes Nishikori’s No. 4 the second-highest ranking in Japanese history, behind only those pre-war marks. Players like Yoshihito Nishioka and Shintaro Mochizuki are fighting on tour today, but neither their rankings nor their results have reached Nishikori’s level yet, and many in the thread are waiting for the next generation to step up. Note that some posts in the thread linked his post-marriage slump to his personal life, but since those claims lacked any concrete basis, they have been excluded from this article.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisports Speed+) thread “[Tennis] Kei Nishikori Ends 19-Year Pro Career in Tears, “I Wanted to Show a Bit of a Better Match,” Loses Final Official Match… Kinoshita Group Japan Open.”
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