Kei Nishikori just couldn’t catch a break.

After sitting out the 2022 season following hip surgery, the Japanese star was in Bradenton, Florida working hard at the end of the year to be ready for a return at the start of 2023. That’s when a seemingly minor ankle sprain spiralled into something much more serious.

“After eight or nine months of rehab after the hip surgery I was almost ready to come back when I sprained my ankle,” Nishikori told ATPTour.com Tuesday at the Atlanta Open. “It turned out to be complicated and much worse than what I first saw. That set me back another four or five months.

“Once or twice I almost thought [about retiring]. It was mentally shocking to be so close and then to have a second injury. I wasn’t sure if I could come back from that. So that was the toughest time.”

Little wonder then that Nishikori’s first tour-level win (over Jordan Thompson Tuesday in the first round of the Atlanta Open) since Indian Wells in October 2021 was an emotional experience.

“It was very emotional after everything that it took to get back,” he said after the 7-6(5), 7-6(5) victory in two hours and 25 minutes in the heat. “I’m just so happy to be back here playing. I have zero pressure and can play free. I’m just having fun on the court. And I’m excited to be playing against the top guys again.

“I have had a good team around me and I’m very thankful that Max and Michael kept encouraging me. They still believe in me and I believe it too.”

Max Mirnyi, part of Nishikori’s coaching team with Michael Chang, has been at the 33-year-old’s side during the tough moments and was on hand Tuesday in Atlanta for the comeback win.

“He never lost sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. It can be gruelling and tough to stay motivated, but he was never in doubt and kept on working,” said Mirnyi, who played 486 singles matches and 1125 doubles matches during his career. “He always saw that this was a possibility. He was very professional throughout this time and to see him back and competing on the Tour is great.”

Former World No. 4 Nishikori, who finds himself at No. 439 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, began his comeback in mid-June in Puerto Rico on the ATP Challenger Tour. He was searching for matches to get some rhythm and build confidence. The decision to start in the minor leagues paid immediate dividends as he won the title for the loss of just one set. He then got another five matches under his belt at Challengers in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and Chicago before heading to Atlanta.

Kei Nishikori in action at the Chicago Challenger.” />
^{Kei Nishikori in action at the Chicago Challenger. Photo: Daniel Westhoff}

“I was just expecting to play one match, maybe two, but with each match I played better and started feeling the confidence,” Nishikori said of his Challenger Tour run. “I started getting the feeling of being back playing matches, feeling the nerves. I was very happy to win a title in my first tournament back and then I lost to a couple of good players after that. I wasn’t too sad about it. I was just excited to be playing.”

Nishikori decided to have hip surgery in February 2022 to avoid the fate of Bob Bryan and Andy Murray, who are both sporting metal hips. The former US Open finalist had similar surgery at a similar time to James Duckworth, although the Australian made it back on Tour just a few months later in May.

“My hip was not too bad, not like Andy,” Nishikori said. “We shaved some bone away and also I had a little bit of a tear in the labrum. Had I kept playing without the surgery then I may have had to do something like Andy did. But fortunately, I found out before it got really bad.

“I talked to James Duckworth, who had the same surgery and I was really surprised how quickly he came back to playing. But he told me that he had some issues, so perhaps he came back too early. I decided to take a little more time.

“One of my biggest doubts was whether I would be able to move like I used to. And also that you lose the feeling for the ball on the racquet and you have zero confidence. You’ve got to build again from zero, so it’s a tough mental challenge.”

If his body cooperates, Nishikori says that he has the hunger to play for several more years. One motivating factor is to compete against the game’s new faces who have climbed into the Top 10 during his absence.

“One thing I hope to get the chance to do is to play against these great young players like Alcaraz, Rune and Sinner at some point,” he said. “That’s part of my motivation to try to play for a few more years.

“I don’t think we have seen anyone like Alcaraz before. He looks like Rafa but he has more speed. Good defence, unbelievable forehand and he has a good backhand too.”

Mirnyi, affectionately known as ‘The Beast’, said that Team Nishikori is pleased with the progress, but is in no rush to set lofty goals for the remainder of this year and next.

“There was a lot of patience involved and it’s great to see him back playing at the Tour level,” Mirnyi said. “He may not be back to his best yet but most importantly he is healthy. Including the Challengers, he’s been back for three or four weeks and he is feeling strong and his body is allowing him to play a tough match like the one he just played today.”

Italian Matteo Arnaldi earned victory on debut at the Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag on Tuesday when he overcame Dutch qualifier Jesper De Dong 6-3, 6-2 to reach the second round.

The 22-year-old, who competed at the Next Gen ATP Finals in 2022, won 77 per cent (20/26) of his first-serve points and broke De Dong four times to triumph one hour and 33 minutes at the clay-court ATP 250.

The seventh seed Arnaldi has now earned seven tour-level wins this year, with his best result a run to the third round in Madrid. He will next play countryman Flavio Cobolli.

In other action, Hungarian Zsombor Piros beat Australian Christopher O’Connell 6-3, 6-4. The World No. 124 has won two ATP Challenger Tour titles this year.

Several other matches on the schedule, including Stan Wawrinka’s clash against Filip Misolic, were cancelled due to rain.

As one of the fiercest competitors on the ATP Tour, inconsistency isn’t something you typically associate with Alex de Minaur.

But as the ATP Tour season moves into the third quarter and he takes stock of his 2023 performance, the Australian speedster is focussed on weeding out some of the disappointing early-round losses, particularly on the big stages, which have prevented him turning a good season into a great one.

At World No. 17, he’s just two spots away from his career-high Pepperstone ATP Ranking. His 22-14 record on the year is solid. He claimed the biggest title of his career in February at the ATP 500 in Acapulco and was competitive in a 6-4, 6-4 defeat to Carlos Alcaraz in the Queen’s final shortly before the Spaniard went on to win Wimbledon.

But after a run to the Australian Open fourth round (l. to Djokovic) in January, De Minaur has endured a 4-7 record at the Grand Slam and ATP Masters 1000 levels.

“It’s been quite an up and down season. I’ve had some very good results and some not so good ones, which I would like to erase,” De Minaur told ATPTour.com in Atlanta. “But still right now I stand at a pretty good spot with the second part of the year to go and I’m looking forward to hopefully being able to make good use of where I am and have some good results and keep pushing higher and higher and hopefully get to a new career high.”

Consistency has not been a problem for the Australian at the Atlanta Open, an event he has won twice in three appearances, and where he is set to defend his title this week. De Minaur this week is playing his first tournament since a second-round exit at Wimbledon, returning to Atlanta where he is on an eight-match winning streak after his titles in 2022 and 2019.

“I just feel good here,” De Minaur said. “It’s a very comfortable tournament that’s very easy for the players. The hotel is basically on site and you have some great food close by. It definitely makes it easier to play good tennis when you’re comfortable.”

Having spent the first part of his career squeezed out of big titles contention by the likes of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, De Minaur looks upon the next few years as potentially the most productive period of his career, despite the emergence of the new triple threat of Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Holger Rune, who may embark on a shared period of domination of their own.

“We’re getting to a stage in tennis where everything is opening up a lot, so that’s quite exciting. Looking at myself personally, I would like to be amongst the people breaking through to the next level,” De Minaur said.

“So that’s the plan for me. Just keep working on myself. Keep trying to push through and be the guy that ends up going deep in in the big tournaments in the big weeks.”

His two Atlanta titles are evidence that the Sydney native has not struggled making the transition from the grass season to the US hard courts. And he doesn’t have any concerns about the switch this time around.

“It’s probably not the hardest change in the world. I think there’s other changes throughout the year that take a little bit more adjusting to. After Wimbledon, I like to take a little bit of time off, kind of reset a little bit, both physically and mentally. And then normally get myself a nice little week of prep, good prep, good training, and then I’m ready to go.

“There’s nothing specific I do. Ultimately, it comes very natural to me playing on the hard courts. Probably the biggest thing is just movement, you start trusting yourself again, and start kind of committing to movement for work and kind of sliding around the court.

“Coming back as the defending champion, if anything, it just creates a target on your back. I’ve been fortunate enough to do it a couple times. So now, I’m kind of used to it and it’s just another week. Every time you start a new tournament, you start from scratch, and you know you gotta let the best man win. So hopefully I can put myself in contention this week, and we’ll see what happens.”

De Minaur’s opening match will be against fellow Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis, who enjoyed a comeback three-set win over Gael Monfils Monday night.

Kei Nishikori made a successful comeback to ATP Tour action on Tuesday with a tight straight-sets win at the Atlanta Open.

The former World No. 4 won his first tour-level match since October 2021 when he defeated Australian Jordan Thompson 7-6(5), 7-6(5) to reach the second round. He will next play sixth seed Ben Shelton or qualifier Shang Juncheng.

“Not [an] easy first round against Jordan. He’s very steady from the baseline. He doesn’t miss much and I have to be aggressive all the time,” Nishikori said in his on-court interview. “But I’m quite happy the way I played today. There were some moments that I should have stepped up a little more. But with these tough condition I’m happy to win in two sets.”

The 33-year-old returned on the ATP Challenger Tour last month and immediately won a title in Puerto Rico. In the first tour-level match of his comeback, Nishikori moved well in sweltering Atlanta conditions and saved all four break points he faced to claw through a gruelling baseline duel after two hours and 25 minutes.

“I played good, actually. I played a couple of Challengers before here and I didn’t play [for] almost two years,” Nishikori said. “It was a pretty good level, I think. And yeah, I just keep playing my best and hope I can stay later this week.”

Much has changed for Christopher Eubanks since he played his hometown event 12 months ago.

This time last year the former Georgia Tech standout attracted little attention as he raced from the Indianapolis Challenger to take his place in the qualifying draw, where he lost in the first round to Briton Jack Draper in a tight three setter.

Fast forward to 2023 and Eubanks returns to Atlantic Station as the headline act after his fairytale run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals that moved him more than 100 places higher to No. 32 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

“I remember that match against Jack because I got in the really, really late from Indianapolis and the whole day was just kind of a blur,” Eubanks said.

Far from the anonymity of the qualifying rounds, Eubanks on Tuesday leads off a marquee night session that also features countryman Ben Shelton, who made his pro debut at Atlantic Station last year. Eubanks will face 22-year-old American Andres Martin. (Interestingly, the former Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets followed through on an earlier plan to practise together at the weekend before the draw was made.)

Eubanks said that he was excited for the opportunity to play in front of home fans with his new-found profile.

“My entire life of tennis has kind of been centered around the city of Atlanta,” he said. “From the very first time I picked up a ball to my first junior tournament to the very first match I played in college. So there’s a lot of a lot of memories there.

“It’s always exciting playing in Atlanta, because I’ve always played well. I’ve had some of my best moments here as a professional and as a college player, even in juniors. I think the conditions suit my game well, so I’m just excited to get out there and play tomorrow.”

Eubanks returned to Atlanta immediately after his quarter-final loss to Daniil Medvedev at Wimbledon. He took four days off before heading back to the gym. He resumed practising last Wednesday. One thing Eubanks feels has been lost in the Wimbledon hype was his first ATP Tour title in Mallorca in the week before the major.

“After a few days of rest I was very eager to jump back into my routine and all of the things that I felt like contributed to my success, like being in the gym, taking care of the body,” he said. “So I just kind of tried my best to just dive back into that and use that as my primary focus and not so much the other stuff.

“It’s hard to say if the run has been life-changing, but I definitely think it’s been career-changing. Wimbledon definitely elevated me but Mallorca did a good job of doing that as well. So I think it’s a combination of the two. I think Mallorca kind of gets overlooked a little bit, obviously, because of the glitz and glam of Wimbledon. But I think Mallorca started me off on a good foot, and Wimbledon just allowed me to just carry on that momentum.”

Wu Yibing’s rapid rise has been one of the notable stories on the ATP Tour in the past year. In a span of 13 months, the Chinese star climbed from No. 1,738 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings to a career-high No. 54 in April.

The 23-year-old’s journey has been filled with hard work and memorable moments. Wu revealed in ATP Uncovered one fun story involving his discovery of a new cheat meal.

“When I first came back from Covid, I broke my ankle and then my first tournament I came back, I’m playing [an ITF World Tennis Tour event] in the States,” Wu said. “On the way to the tournament, me and my coach saw this burger place, Five Guys, it’s very popular in the States. Me and my coach said, ‘Let’s eat this if you win the tournament!’ I actually won it, so we celebrated with Five Guys. I got a hot dog and a burger.”

Wu also reflected on his childhood and explained why tennis won out over another sport.

Away from tennis, Wu likes to stay loose. Watch the full video above to find out what his dream day off would entail, which English Premier League club he supports and the basketball player he considers his idol.

Reigning champion Lorenzo Musetti made a winning start to his title defence at the Hamburg European Open on Tuesday when he cruised past Swedish qualifier Elias Ymer 6-4, 6-1.

Competing under the roof at the ATP 500 clay-court event, Musetti combined guile with power to outfox Ymer. The 21-year-old Italian won 76 per cent (23/34) of his first-serve points and broke Ymer’s serve five times to triumph after one hour and 16 minutes.

“It took a little bit to get the momentum going. It was not easy because the opponent was playing well, pretty aggressive from the beginning,” Musetti said. “In the end I think I found the right balance, the right rhythm. I have good memories from last year and I am really feeling good here.”

Musetti is chasing his third tour-level trophy and first of the season, having also won in Naples in October 2022. The third seed, who defeated Carlos Alcaraz in the title match in Germany last year, will face Thiago Seyboth Wild or Jozef Kovalik in the second round.

Musetti now holds a 15-10 record on clay this season. The World No. 18’s deepest runs this year were semi-final appearances at the ATP 500 event in Barcelona in April and at the ATP 250 in Bastad last week.

Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis recovered from a first-set blowout and a dire position in the final-set tie-break to stun Frenchman Gael Monfils to reach the second round of the Atlanta Open Monday night.

After a series of loose forehand errors in the deciding-set tie-break, the World No. 86 gathered his composure after a warning for racquet abuse and rallied from 0/4 and 3/5 to close out a 6-1- 3-6, 7-6(5) victory on his first match point.

“At 0/4 I thought it was pretty much over… From there it’s one point at a time,” Kokkinakis said. “In a tie-break you can go down quickly and can come back quickly. I got a point on his serve and then two on mine and all of a sudden he’s feeling the pressure.

“It was pretty stressful, especially in the first set, which wasn’t much fun He posed a lot of challenges and he is one of the quickest players on tour. I can’t get a ball by him most of the time.”

Monfils was playing his first match since withdrawing from his second-round match with Holger Rune at Roland Garros due to a left wrist tear.

Kokkinakis’ victory was the 27-year-old’s first tour-level match win since he reached the third round of Roland Garros. He next faces fellow Aussie and second seed Alex de Minaur.

“Demon and I are good mates. We share Davis Cup together, we train a little bit together,” Kokkinakis said. “He’s a hell of a player and he’s leading the way for us Aussies. He’s the defending champion here in Atlanta so he obviously likes the conditions.

“I know it won’t be easy. I practised with him the other day and he gave me a spanking. It should be a fun match.”

Kokkinakis, who improved to 12-9 on the season, put 76 per cent of first serves into play and won 76 per cent of those points.

Eighth-seeded American J. J. Wolf raced through his opener with Chinese Taipei qualifier Jason Jung 6-2. 6-1 to claim his first career win in Atlanta.

Wolf, who won 81 per cent of first-serve points and saved the lone break point he faced, will next play the winner of 18-year-old Newport finalist Alex Michelsen and serve/volley specialist Maxime Cressy.

Sydney’s World No. 82 Aleksandar Vukic earlier in the day defeated NCAA champion and former University of Georgia Bulldog Ethan Quinn 7-6(5), 6-3.

South African qualifier Lloyd Harris rallied from a set down to beat Australian Jams Duckworth 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 after firing 18 aces. The former World No. 31, who is now outside the Top 200 after missing the final six months of the 2022 season following wrist surgery, recently pushed Christopher Eubanks to a third-set tie-break in the semi-finals of Mallorca.