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Kei Nishikori is the "Mr. Momentum “of the ATP tour

What is more to avoid against Kei Nishikori in best-of-three matches than against other players in the ATP? Under no circumstances lose the second sentence!

by tennisnet.com
last edit: Jun 16, 2020, 07:36 am

You should win the second set against Kei Nishikori

In times like these, people like Craig O´Shaugnessy always flourish particularly: in the tournament-free period, the statistics guru has more options to devote himself to the extensive numbers that the meticulously recorded matches on the ATP tour reveal. And this time O´Shaugnessy looked back very, very far and took a look at a period of 30 years.

And lo and behold: The perhaps arbitrarily chosen, but not entirely unimportant category "percentage of best-of-three matches won after winning second set" is led by Kei Nishikori. All matches between 1991 and 2020 included. Now, as is well known, two successful contests will at best bring you success in an ATP Masters 1000 tournament (of which Nishikori has not yet won), but the ranking is remarkable: after all, the Japanese is the only player who more than three quarters of his games have still won after he has set up the set.

player	Quota	Matches	Victories
Kei Nishikori	76.5	85	65
Stefan Edberg	74.3	101	75
Rafael Nadal	72.0	50	36
Lleyton Hewitt	71.3	122	87
Pete Sampras	71.3	87	62
Andy Murray	71.2	104	74
Novak Djokovic	71.0	107	76
Yevgeny Kafelnikov	70.4	126	88
Andy Roddick	70.1	77	54
Stefan Koubek	70.0	50	35

And because there is time, there is also a statistic that shows what the relation of the first sets won to the three-set matches won. Also recorded since 1990.

player	Quota	Matches	Victories
Novak Djokovic	76.0	96	73
Thomas Muster	73.1	78	57
Juan Martin del Potro	70.5	61	43
Kei Nishikori	69.2	65	45
Andy Murray	67.4	89	60
Andy Roddick	67.0	91	61
Roger Federer	66.7	165	110
Pete Sampras	66.7	93	62
Michael Chang	65.1	106	69
Tommy Haas	64.2	120	77