Read & Watch: Nishikori Too Much For Paire In Tokyo; De Minaur Advances

Kei Nishikori has won his home tournament twice, and he looks in good form to push for a third trophy, defeating Frenchman Benoit Paire 6-3, 7-5 on Tuesday to reach the quarter-finals of the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2018.

The Japanese star is now 20-7 in Tokyo, and he has advanced to the last eight at the ATP World Tour 500-level event in five of his past six appearances.

"There were many ups and downs in the second set," Nishikori said. "There were some difficult moments, but I thought I handled it well, especially in the difficult moments I focused well and played well. That's why I was able to win in two sets."

Nishikori is also battling for a spot at the Nitto ATP Finals for the fourth time. Every victory is critical, as the 28-year-old is currently tenth in the ATP Race To London. The Japanese is 885 points behind eighth-placed Kevin Anderson, who is also competing in Tokyo.

"I think I focus more on each match because I'm still far away and I've got to win a big thing to go to the [Nitto] ATP Finals, so I've got to play one match at a time," Nishikori said. "Hopefully I can go to the Finals, but there are still four tournaments, and I'm taking it just one tournament at a time and we'll see."

It was not an easy match for Nishikori, as Paire led 3-0 in the second set and despite losing the next five games, broke the Japanese as he served for the match. But the former World No. 4 dug in and battled through after one hour and 28 minutes.

Also in his section of the draw is #NextGenATP Aussie Alex de Minaur, who saved four match points in the second set before ousting Frenchman Gilles Simon 6-7(1), 7-6(5), 6-2 to reach the second round. Last week at the Shenzhen Open, the 19-year-old lost to Pierre-Hugues Herbert after holding two match points. But on Wednesday, he ended up on the right side of a similar equation.

“At the end of the day you just try to focus on that point. My attitude every single time I go out on court is just to fight until the end and leave it all out there,” De Minaur said of saving match points. “Tennis is a funny sport. Last week in Shenzhen I lost having two match points, so it could go either way. I just knew I had to keep pushing and make him beat me. At the end I was able to overturn that with some very long rallies and tough play and ended up getting the win, so I’m very proud of myself.”

De Minaur started the campaign at No. 208 in the ATP Rankings with just two tour-level match wins to his name. But in triumphing after three hours and six minutes, the World No. 38 earned his 22nd victory of 2018.

The Spain resident saved eight of the 11 break points he faced, and won 54 per cent of return points in the deciding set to advance. It was an interesting match of styles, as De Minaur is one of the speediest players on the ATP World Tour, and Simon limits the pace on his strokes to play a more tactical game, turning rallies into chess.

“Very tough match. He’s probably one of the trickiest guys out there to play, with a lot of experience. He’s been No. 6 in the world and just his style of play, especially on these courts where they’re quite slow and low-bouncing, it’s a bit of cat and mouse,” De Minaur said. “You’ve got to really think of what kind of gamestyle you want to play, because at the end of the day he’s going to want you to play the gamestyle that suits him and if you start doing that it’s going to be a long match. I managed to find a game style that worked for me today and I’m happy I executed.”

De Minaur, who’s No. 4 in the ATP Race To Milan for a spot at the Next Gen ATP Finals in November, will next clash against another #NextGenATP player in Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No. 5 seed. It will be the pair’s maiden FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting.