Nishikori Ousts Wawrinka In Brisbane

Kei Nishikori is making a statement with his tennis at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp. The third seed didn’t drop serve on Saturday in scoring a 7-(3), 6-3 upset over second seed Stan Wawrinka.

Nishikori will now play the winner of the semi-final between top seed Milos Raonic and seventh seed Grigor Dimitrov. He has dominated his FedEx ATP Head2Head with Dimitrov 3-0, including a win last August at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Toronto. Nishikori also leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry with Raonic 5-2, but the Canadian prevailed in a third-set tie-break when they faced off in the 2015 Brisbane semi-finals.

Wawrinka and Nishikori traded service holds in the opening set to force a tie-break, but it was the Japanese star who grabbed the first burst of momentum. Nishikori went on a five-point run to take a 6/2 lead and grabbed the early lead on his second set point opportunity.

The third seed finally earned the first break of the match to lead Wawrinka 3-1 in the second set, but the Swiss player fought back by immediately breaking back in the next game. Nishikori calmly responded with a second consecutive break of Wawrinka and held the lead this time, easily closing out the match on serve at his first chance.

This is Nishikori’s second straight victory over Wawrinka, with the previous win coming last November at the ATP Finals. He evened his FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry with Wawrinka to 4-4.