Montreal Masters: Nishikori moves into second round, faces Tsitsipas next

Japanese Kei Nishikori moved into the second round of the Montreal Masters by edging out American Alex Michelsen 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 at Stade IGA on Tuesday evening.

Kei Nishikori will face No 8 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas next.

“It’s been a long time,” Nishikori said during his on-court interview. “It means a lot, especially the way I played in the third set. First and second set, many ups and downs and I was missing a lot of balls. Third set, I was playing pretty good tennis I think, good defence and when I needed to, I was having good movement and playing aggressive. It was working really well.”

“I just needed to keep believing in myself, that’s the only thing I can do. To be aggressive, start hitting more forehands and backhands (down the) line. I think that started working well in the second set,” said the Japanese player.

Montreal Masters 1000, other first-round results (Stade IGA, hard, USD 6.795.555, most recent results first):

• Frances Tiafoe vs. Alejandro Tabilo
• Jordan Thompson vs. Jack Draper
• Mariano Navone vs. Taylor Fritz
• Sebastian Korda vs. Vasek Pospisil
• Cameron Norrie vs. Marcos Giron
• Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Flavio Cobolli
• Alexander Bublik vs. Ben Shelton
• Alexei Popyrin vs. Tomas Machac
• Ugo Humbert vs. Arthur Fils
• Alejandro Davidovich Fokina vs. Roman Safiullin
• Tommy Paul vs. Luciano Darderi
• Fabian Marozsan vs. Pablo Carreno Busta
• Holger Rune vs. Milos Raonic
• Nuno Borges vs. Miomir Kecmanovic
• Gabriel Diallo vs. Karen Khachanov
• Tomas Martin Etcheverry vs. Nicolas Jarry
• Lorenzo Sonego beat Tallon Griekspoor: 7-6 (7), 5-7, 6-4