SHUNSUKE Nakamura always had his own private press corps at Parkhead but that is nothing to the job lot of Japanese journalists who are following Kei Nishikori's every move in London this week. The reaction to the World No 5 when he plays in his home country is similar to that experienced by the Beatles at Shea Stadium in the 60s - one of his practice sessions at this year's Japan Open drew a 9,000 crowd - and further fame and fortune beckons when the 26-year-old becomes one of the faces of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Those staying up late in the Asian sub-continent excitedly waiting to see how their favourite son started his ATP World Tour Finals campaign must have been delighted when he took just 67 minutes to dispose of Stan Wawrinka, the man whose No 3 ranking he would quite happily acquire by the end of this week.
While the Swiss man went into the match with some black physio tape attached to his knee, the one-sidedness of this 6-2, 6-3 win came as a surprise to most. Wawrinka, after all, had disposed of Nishikori in four sets en route to his US Open win back in September, a victory which was his third major triumph in three years. On this form, it is the Japanese player who appears the bigger threat to Andy Murray at the group stage.
"I'm not thinking too much about rankings, but would be nice if I could finish 4 or 3," said Nishikori. "I see a good chance to be there if I can play good this week so that's one of my goal this week. Also next year I hope I can stay No 4 or No 3, and try to catch up Andy and Djoko."
"It is not the first time that I lose the first match here," said an out-of-sorts Wawrinka. "I thought I could have played better today, but I didn't find any solutions."
Another surprisingly lacklustre performance at the o2 yesterday came from No 1 ranked doubles team Nicolas Mahut and Pierre Hugues Herbert of France. They left the door open to Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares in their bid to be crowned the best doubles team in the sport when they slumped to a 6-4, 7-5 defeat to No 7 seeds Rajeev Klaasen of South Africa and Rajeev Ram of the USA.
Murray and Soares can all but clinch their semi-final berth if they defeat the Bryan brothers of the USA today. "They're clearly the best team in history with the amount of titles they won," said Jamie, "although probably they're starting to kind of decline a little bit. We're really fired up to play against them."
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