Kei Nishikori, Japan’s best player, played a good amount of tennis in the US training at Nick Bolletieri’s during his formative years, so in a way, the US is his home away from home.  Nishikori won the biggest title of his career by winning Tokyo on home soil over Milos Raonic.  This event is an ATP 500 event.  The Memphis event, also known as the US National Indoor Championship, is also an ATP 500 event.

Nishikori came in favored over Lopez who had a great year in 2011 making the quarterfinals of Wimbledon, but has slipped in ranking since then.  Lopez has a new coach and thanked him for helping him reach a final.

Nishikori came out crackling in the first set and was up 5-1 in less than half an hour, returning well, and being aggressive pushing Lopez around the court, often hitting his down-the-line forehand for winners.  Lopez was lunging around getting to shots, and while he did a good job reaching the shots and sometimes hitting the shots, Nishikori kept the attack on.

Lopez had a good lead to start the second set, but then found himself struggling to hold serve and got broken.  He had Nishikori down 0-40, but Nishikori went on to win the next 5 points and keep the break up.  While Lopez did somewhat better holding serve, Nishikori kept the pressure up on his own serve, and then got Lopez in trouble in his last game, and lost a second serve.

Final score: 62, 63.

Buenos Aires

Many people feel bad for Stan Wawrinka.  He pushed Djokovic to 5 sets, the only one to do so at the Australian Open, and kept even all the way through the five sets.  He played doubles for Switzerland on a Federer-less tie against the Czech Republic, and played the longest match in Davis Cup history, at 7 hours (to be fair, it was Chiudinelli who double-faulted to lose serve).

Wawrinka made the finals of Buenos Aires where he faced the bulldog, David Ferrer.  While fans feel Wawrinka ought to win the match, history shows that Ferrer has to be favored.  People want Wawrinka to win so badly, that they discount David Ferrer which is unwise given how good Ferrer is.  In the past 3 years, Ferrer could easily be the fourth best clay courter.  Yeah, fourth isn’t great, but he’d be behind Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer.  So fourth isn’t that bad.  And unlike many players that aren’t at the top, Ferrer is a very solid number 4.   If Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, and Murray retired, Ferrer would be a solid number 1, despite the fact that Tsonga and Berdych are much bigger hitters.

Ferrer took the first set, 64, lost the second 36, but came back strong to take the final set, 61.

Ferrer has won his second title of the year, and has done no worse than reach the semis of all four tournaments he’s played (semis in Doha and Australian Open, winner at Auckland and Buenos Aires).