by Pete Bodo

It seemed like I’d been on site at the USTABJKNTC for all of ten minutes when I was called to battle stations by the scoreboard on my video monitor – out on Court 13, Japan's Kei (pronounced “Kay”) Nishikori had just won the second set from no. 28 seed Juan "Pico" Monaco.  Having vowed this first week to take a look at some of the US Open’s unusual suspects, I made my way over, pronto.

I was so unprepared for actually working that for a few minutes I had the two guys confused, thinking it was "Pico" Monaco in black and white kit, and Nishikori in the lime-green Adidas shirt with the Sony “patch” professionally printed on the fabric (to add to the confusion, they would switch outfits midway through - fresh ones, that is).

To add to the confusion, I swear the umpire called the wrong score at one point at the end of the first game of set 3 (with Monaco serving), and there was a fair amount of jawboning at the net about a Monaco forehand that had so clearly been good two points earlier that Nishikori, somewhat confused by the heated debate, finally just backed Monaco. That earned him a low-five from Monaco as they crossed by the net post, and then Nishikori promptly was broken for 0-2, and ultimately lost the set. 5-7.

It didn’t faze Nishikori, though. In the ensuing, fourth set, he put on a display that defined him not just as a superb, cool competitor, but one of the more interesting ball strikers on the ATP horizon. Nishikori is an 18-year old from Shimane – the  first Top 20-grade player produced by that nation since Shuzo Matsuoka hit his career-high ranking of no. 46 in July of 1992.

You may remember Matsuoka as an extremely fit, tall (6-1) player whose game radiated discipline and who played with the calm clarity that you might expect in a martial arts master – at least if you watched a lot of martial arts movies filled with the usual cryptic pearls of wisdom, with a side of pseudo-psychological mumbo-jumbo.

Nishikori doesn’t have anything like Matsuoka’s regal bearing or impressive physique. He’s a 5-10, 150-pounder blessed with the familiar Japanese penchant for spiky, punk-ish hair – only in his case, it isn’t styled in a way that makes you think “uh-oh, fashion statement on Court 13!” It’s just unruly in a way that underscores his boyishness. He’s got a pleasant, surprisingly expressive face with small features, and his shoulders slope quickly from his neck on either side. Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras, Andy Roddick – each of them is broad-shouldered, and resembles nothing less than a red-tailed hawk with hunched wings sitting a fence post. Nishikori would be more easily taken for the straw and cloth effigy placed in the field to ward off such predators.

Yesterday, the 18-year old pride of the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy did a fine job in keeping Monaco in check. Nishikori is an aggressive baseliner, and a lazy mind might be drawn to comparisons with Michael Chang. But Nishikori has a lot more going on in his game than Chang, for all his assets, ever did. For one thing, he isn’t reluctant to attack the short ball and he’s got fine touch at the net. He also hits his backhand with two hands or, when slice is called for, one.

Nishikori’s forehand has the potential to be truly explosive, although it isn’t quite there yet. And that’s where a less obvious comparison comes into play: Nishikori hits that forehand the way Jim Courier did – full western grip designed to generate enormous torque, wrist-action as required, from an open stance. His body uncoils from a low center of gravity, arm in tight to his torso. . . Like Courier, Nishikori looks like a fighter taking a savage uppercut. The ball is truly punished, and the sound can be a sickening. . . splat! 

A facility from playing from a crouch, and pretty much staying there through a stroke, is always an asset. Bu one of Nishikori’s less conspicuous strengths is his balance, a quality that enables him to make surprisingly offensive shots from clearly defensive positions. At one point yesterday, he was pulled very wide on the forehand side by a Monaco serve, but he managed to reach the ball at full stretch with superb body and racket control, and apply a wrist-flick to make a soft return that asked the hard-charging Monaco an awkward question somewhere in the vicinity of the service line on Monaco’s backhand side. Monaco couldn’t handle the feathery, low-bouncing shot and jumped all over the backhand – driving it into the net.

Many players, including Sampras, have remarked on Roger Federer’s ability to transition from defense to offense in the blink of an eye. Nishikori can do that, too. If he’s a little bit Courier, he’s also a little bit Fabrice Santoro, at least in his vision of the game. We may never be tempted to rhapsodize about “full-flight Nishikori”, but he’s going to make plenty of shots that leave spectators scratching their heads, asking. “How did he do that?”

Monaco has a nice, clean, bread-and-butter game. He likes nothing than to load up, draw a bead, and cut loose a big forehand. But Nishikori chipped away, without ever relaxing the pressure. He kept the ball deep, he moved it around well; he’s one of those players who’s shots seem naturally and automatically drawn to the lines. His angles, when he chooses to open the court, are just a little more severe, and thus more problematic, than those of other players.

As a result, by midway through the third set, Monaco appeared to be tiring. One telltale sign of fatigue is the tendency to drive the ball long when a player has just enough time to take a big cut – but not that extra split-second that would allow him to fully control the stroke, from just before point-of-contact all the way through follow through. A tired player is just late enough to the ball to not cover it properly. So, while Monaco hung tough and took advantage of Nishikori’s inexperience to win the third set, his game began to generate in the fifth game of the fourth set.

Fatigue may be the least well-understood enemy in tennis, and it began to get the better of Monaco. It invited him to lose patience, and go for more of what he no longer could produce. Nishikori called for the trainer while he was serving for a 5-2 lead, but the 10 minute break did nothing for Monaco’s faltering resources. He played worse, not better, after the breather.

Nishikori isn’t an easy interview. He’s shy and well-mannered, as if he feels it isn’t his place to provide anything more than the immediate information sought. He found the debate over the bad call a bit too heated and emotional: “Yeah, I thought it was like crazy, stupid, so. . . I just called (it) in.” Nishikori allowed how this was a “great win” and admitted that he didn’t think he'd be up to the job.

I tried to press a little on the personal front, and learned that he had been at the NBTA for almost five years. He said he loved it there, with so many good players and good coaches. Oliver van Lindonk, the International Management Group agent who represents Nishikori, later put the value of the NBTA into perspective for me. He explained that after Nishikori’s biggest win (over James Blake in the final at Delray Beach early this year), the youngster made a reference to the pace and weight of shot and how it affected him in the match: “I was really nervous at the end of the match, but that (kind of) ball – I’d seen that ball often at that academy, practicing with Tommy (Haas) and Xavier (Malisse).”

Nishikori’s parents are retired; twice a week, they hold a conference call with Nishikori and his coaches (the team is now led by Glenn Weiner). The boy has only been at home once or twice a year since he arrived on US shores, and seems content to exchange emails with his parents. He’s well-adjusted to life at the academy, and what culture gap may have existed has been rapidly closed by friends and roommates perfectly suited to the job, including Brad Gilbert’s son, Zach. Nishikori also has become friends with Jesse Levine, Haas and Radek Stepanek as well. Personally, I couldn’t imagine a more wildly diverse quartet of companions, but maybe that’s why Nishikori seems so well adjusted.

Around the academy, Nishikori has been loosely dubbed, “Project 45” –  a nod to the fact that the highest ranking every attained by a Japanese male was Matsuoka's no. 46. Nishikori's currently at 126, and making solid progress. With his win here today, he became the first Japanese man to make it to the second round of the US Open since Matsuoka in 1993.

In Japan, Nishikori is rapidly approaching superstar status. He has a lucrative deal with Sony, although you might be tempted to feel that he ought to be paying them.  After all, Masaaki Morita, whose family founded the Sony company, established a fund (at the urging of the late founder of IMG, Mark McCormack) that underwrites the development of four Japanese junior players every year – Nishikori is emerging as the foundation’s outstanding success story.

Not long ago, Nishikori was surprised to see that two Japanese camera crews had somehow gotten onto the same flights he was taking from Bradenton, Fla., to India, for a Davis Cup tie. It turns out that the crews had been planted by Japanese news agencies determined to feed the growing hunger in Japan for all things Nishikori. And van Lindonk told me that the Japanese networks are already recruiting reporters who's exclusive job would be covering Nishikori. The youth has handled the attention well; after all, he’s basically sequestered from it.

“This is kid who like pizza, and he also likes to sing karaoke,” van Lindonk says. “The most ‘Japanese’ thing about him probably is that he’s still really into those animated cartoons that are so big in Japan. He watches them on his computer.”

Can the Kei Nishikori comic book be far behind?